Ranging from flash fiction to novelette, these stories are in
turn chilling, playful, and melancholy. The bonds of family
and of community, both in their fracturing and their healing
states, the uneasy relationship between living in the present
and yearning for the past, are themes that thread their way
through Figurehead. Every tale is rich with landscapes
haunted by loss and longing.
In this debut collection of stories Carly Holmes peers into
every corner of the strange fiction genre: from rural gothic
through to traditional ghost stories and the uncanny. Mothers
turn into trees when the sun goes down; Russian Dolls
mourn their missing sisters in rotting houses; men offer
sacrifices to the monsters who embody their inner wildness;
and murderous demons protect young girls' virginity.