“Christopher arose from a dream I had when staying at my family’s house in the West Country when I was twenty-one. He crunched up through me while hiking in the chalk-ridden hills, tumbling through my psyche along with figures like King Arthur and Robin Goodfellow. Over time, a linkage opened up between these stories and other books I’ve written, such as The Gusty Deep, Sounds of Infinity, and The Rag and Bone Man (due out next year through Crossed Crow Books), connections that only unravel with a reader’s inspection and patience. Christopher’s story also came pre-laden for me with a profound sense of loss, perhaps a comment on his modern predicament. In addition to the queerness of Christopher’s lost love, the story was gently soaked in folk horror long before I even knew the term. In this story, the land itself is both the enemy and an ally. For decades, this tale of longing, supernatural mayhem, and craving for the ineffable has walked with me and matured as I did. Echoes of this story have emerged in my own life and those of others who have walked with me, causing this series to become known as ‘The Haunted Books’. The narrative has evolved and grown into an alchemic tale that has something to say about the journey sorcery can take a person on. It is filled with people who sometimes vibrate into being emanations of the gods of witchcraft, of Luciferic defiance, and of the stretching of human potential that is the art of witchcraft.” —Lee Morgan

The first two books in the Christopher Penrose tetralogy, Wooing the Echo and The Bones Would Do, will be released Fall 2024. The remaining books, Fire and the Skin, and Heart of Hidden Things, will release in 2025.

Cover photographs by Rebecca Rose.