It's 1918, and Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it's connected to the mysterious books his brother left strewn around the house. Rob knows something other than just Arthur's death is bothering Matty. He's know him for years and been in love with him just as long. And when he finds something that looks like a gate, a glowing, terrifying doorway to the unknown, it all starts to fall in to place. Matty's looking sicker and sicker in the same way Arthur did. What is Rob prepared to sacrifice to cure him? The answer is in the esoteric books ... and with the mysterious Lin of the Frem, who lives beyond the gate to nowhere. It's taken Matty and Rob more than a decade to admit they have feelings for each other and they are determined that neither social expectations or magical illness will part them now.

Inheritance of Shadows

“Well then,” she said, practically. “You helped him as well. I’ll try not to make jokes about it from now on, though.” She patted his hand and withdrew her own as she spoke.


“I’d appreciate it,” he said. “I would really appreciate it.” He stood as she rose and hefted her case. “Let me take that,” he offered.


She smiled and passed it to him. “I’ll be back tomorrow to check on him. You should get the telephone out here, you know. It would have saved you running all that way. Although why you didn’t take the car I don’t know.”


“I forgot,” he said. “I plain forgot that we have it. I’m a fool in more ways than one.”


She looked at him shrewdly. “I don’t think so, Robert. I don’t think so at all.” She patted his arm reassuringly. “There’s Matthew with the car. Come on.”


IT WAS ABOUT SIX INthe evening on Christmas Day when Marchant decided he’d had enough and took himself back to bed. He’d spent the day before mostly asleep.


Chapter 40