Candlenight

Journalist Giles Freeman and his wife Claire are thrilled when they inherit a cottage far from the noise of the city. And though the locals are slow to welcome them, the Freemans believe that in time they will be accepted. But the Freemans have fallen under an ancient Celtic curse--and soon they will learn the truth about what it means to be outsiders. Trying to participate in village life despite its standoffish citizens, professional couple Giles and Claire are horrified when events culminate in a town uprising against them, and they discover a sinister truth. Y Groes is small, friendly and very alluring - the perfect escape from London. But American reporter Berry Morelli tries to talk Giles out of moving, believing something is very wrong.

'Grimly sinister... written with blood-curdling aplomb.'

George MacBeth, Sunday Telegraph

'The supernatural thriller has never been a favourite genre of mine, but

Candlenight was exciting enough to overcome my prejudices.'

Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph

'Authentic shudders... some wonderful touches of the bizarre.'

Kate Saunders, London Evening Standard

'An impressive debut which credibly fuses Celtic myth with Welsh politics.'

Conrad Hill, Sunday Times

Bettws Cedewain, near Newtown in Powys became the village of Y Groes (the cross) the setting for Candlenight. In the late 80s, I was working full-time as a news reporter for BBC Wales, covering several of the holiday cottage fires perpetrated by the secret organisation Meibion Glyndwr (the Sons of Glyndwr) which was fighting to save the Welsh language in the face of mass-immigration by English people. We also made a programme called Aliens for Radio Wales and Radio Four, which examined the issue from both sides. Then one day, I thought: what if there was a village with such a powerful, magical Welsh tradition that English people simply couldn't survive there? It had to be a novel. And it needed a real setting. So I shipped quiet, English-speaking Bettws Cedewain about thirty miles south-west, into the foothills of the Cambrian Mountains, used Llandovery in Carmarthenshire as the model for the nearby town of Pontmeurig and created a bunch of Welsh and English people - and one slightly-baffled American - who uncover the truth about a powerful tradition which kills. All the passing manifestations - the bird of death, the phantom funeral and that truly sinister hag, the gyrach y rhybin are from 'active' Welsh folklore - that is, I've spoken to people who swear they've seen some of them. Several publishers turned down Candlenight (too Welsh). But Anna Haycraft (the novelist Alice Thomas Ellis, who has a cottage in a very atmospheric and legend-laden part of Wales) encouraged me to finish it and persuaded her husband, Colin, legendary boss of Duckworth, to publish it. We were away...