Books

THE LOST MACHINE, an illustrated novella (Radiolaria Studios, 2010). Also available as an audiobook from Amazon Audible (Encyclopocalypse, 2019) and Kindle edition

ISBN-10: 0986653500

In a wasteland ravaged by plague, Lumsden Moss steps out of a decaying prison. Armed with a satchel of yellowed notebooks containing the fragile memories of five murdered children, he is determined to track down and confront their killer. Lumsden, accompanied by a stranger, begins a long journey to the ancient City of Steps where he is forced to confront the horrors of the past and present.

NECESSARY MONSTERS (Arche Press, Resurrection House, 2017)

ISBN-10: 1630230502

Available in audiobook format at Audible

Lumsden Moss is an escaped thief and an unrepentant bibliophile with a long-suffering desire to foist some karmic retribution on those who have wronged him. But when the opportunity to steal a rare book from the man who sentenced him to prison puts him on the wrong side of the wrong people, Moss finds himself on the run. And it’s not just the book he stole that these people want, it’s also the secrets of a long-forgotten location on Nightjar Island, a place cursed and abandoned since the Purge.

When Moss falls in with Imogen, a nimble-fingered thief who has taken a traveling bookcase filled with many secrets, he starts to realize how much of his unsavory past is indelibly tied to a frightening witch-child and her nightmarish pet monster.

In a fantastic world, still recovering from a war where magic and technology were fused together, Moss and Imogen must decipher the mystery of their mutual pasts in order to illuminate the dark heart that still lurks on Nightjar Island.

MAGPIE’S LADDER (PS Publishing, 2019)

ISBN-10: 1786364204

Available in audiobook format at Audible

A researcher’s curiosity draws her to the dream realm of the Darkling Lands. Condemned by his own crime, an engrosser plumbs the labyrinthine depths of his firm’s building to find that he is not alone. A giant searches for his missing brother. A young woman opens a sealed house atop a crumbling bridge. A young academic moves into the house of a dead professor and finds himself trapped in a dark fairy-tale. These are five stories of yearning, curiosity and darkness. They explore the fragile and dangerous correspondence between people and monsters. This illustrated book is Richard s first collection of short stories.

THE TAILOR OF ECHOES (PS Publishing, 2022)

ISBN  978-1-78636-826-3 

Dark magic is transforming the ancient City of Steps. To save the city he loves, Adrian Peak, visionary architect, bargains with the Curators, last survivors of an occult secret society. The Curators task Adrian with finding a lost document called the Oneiric Chart in a vast sealed library. When Adrian opens the door to another city in an eerily familiar world, he must rescue Cirrah, an imprisoned magical spirit. The Curator’s servant, renowned artist, Lannikin Flower has a murderous interest in Adrian failing at his task; without Cirrah, he is nothing.

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