The Standing Water

Seen through the dreamlike vision of a seven-year-old boy, here's a gothic tale of haunted imaginations and looming violence … Growing up in remote Emberfield, Ryan suspects his headmaster may be responsible for the deaths of two pupils. Could he be? In Emberfield - a place where dead boys might haunt ponds, where eerie churches apparently house cursed artefacts, where the fog-shrouded landscape is rumoured to be littered with hexes and ghosts - the borders between the imaginary and real, light and darkness, life and death can seem blurred.

Ryan struggles to cope with the volatile and inwardly tortured Mr Weirton and the sadistic punishments he hands out. He fears more pupils may soon fall victim to the headmaster. At first, Ryan retreats into his rich inner life, animating the rain-sodden flatlands around his 1980s northern English town with even more witches, ghosts and macabre legends.

But as Weirton becomes ever more erratic and his sanity seems to slip, as the violence around the teacher intensifies, as sinister secrets are unearthed, Ryan decides that only the most drastic action can stop further tragedies and ensure his own survival.

A gripping tale that unwinds in darkly poetic prose, The Standing Water invites you to enter a world in which TV sets, cartoons and cars exist alongside skeletons, knightly tombs, glimpses of angels and tales of ghostly drummer boys. Discover a world in which little is as it appears, where Old Testament myths have a habit of playing themselves out under heavy English skies, and where death stalks even the young and innocent.

A work of quality literary fiction, The Standing Water also borrows from the genres of gothic literature, magical realism and suspense. If you can picture Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Edgar Allan Poe shaking hands beneath dark northern clouds, you're getting close to imagining the style of The Standing Water.

"I found The Standing Water utterly intriguing. It sucks you into a dark world in which the boundaries between imagination and reality flicker and blur. The sense of place Castleton conjures up is eerie and all-enveloping." Newcastle Magazine, UK

"The Standing Water is a meaty, enthralling novel. Written in beautiful poetic language, it's unashamedly literary, but I didn't find it difficult to read. It certainly kept me turning the pages." Sunderland Magazine

"I thoroughly enjoyed this book and couldn't stop turning the pages. Castleton skilfully weaves a complex, dreamlike world full of the strangest events, but it's all somehow believable as taking place in the novel's setting of 1980s northern England." Janet, amazon.co.uk

"This book was great! Dark and mysterious, written in flowing beautiful prose, once I'd got into it, I just couldn't stop reading till I'd got to the end." Nick, amazon.co.uk

"What a book this is - dark, engaging, poetic, otherworldly, deeply shocking at times and very difficult to put down. For someone like me, who loves language, it was a real treat, and Castleton's mastery of English is often nothing short of stunning." Ewa, Goodreads

"The descriptive writing, as other reviewers have noted, is brilliant and the author's device of interspersing long, dreamlike passages with short, breathless episodes of unbearable tension kept me glued right to the end." S.P, amazon.com

"The characters are deftly developed. The storyline is creative and unique." Florence, amazon.com

If you're fond of well-written, tension-filled gothic literature, buy The Standing Water today.