#Spooktober ‘Ripper Country’ by Jack Harding

About the book…

A darkly twisted feast of Gothic horror stories that will take you to the edge of darkness – and beyond…

Welcome to ‘Ripper Country’.

A semi-alternate Victorian London where imagination runs wild and madness reigns supreme. Where the cobbled streets run red with the blood of the innocent, and unscrupulous fiends come out to play. Where the wicked stench coming off the old river pales in comparison to the foulness of the crimes that will forever haunt the annals of British history.

Where the man you know as Jack The Ripper is the least of Whitechapel’s worries.

Inside these pages, you will find stories of fear, madness, suspense and terror that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Enjoy this blood-soaked debut collection from Jack Harding, author of React and Driving in the Dark, a British horror author set to leave his own bloody legacy on this haunted land…

Recommended for me on Kindle, as aligned to things I like reading-anything on the spooky and horrific spectrum!-Ripper Country came with rave reviews and a warning to the curious …

What I loved about this collection was that whilst the setting is Victorian London, Jack the Ripper lurks in the background as this faceless terror, whch makes his existence scarier, whilst the other beasts and grotesqueries produced by this time period, come out to play.

Dedicated to the women we know to have been murdered by the Ripper, as we might never, really know, this is set at a time where morality was under threat, science and religion were at odds for the soul, and a mysterious killer stalks the streets of the East End.

Conjuring very vividly, the sights, smells and atmosphere of this city, he has an overarching plot device which is gradually revealed over the course of these macabre tales,referncing real life crimes as well as weaving in real life characters such as Inspector Aberline and John Merrick. Alongside these are the fictional monsters such as Dr Jekyll’s darker half, and Dorian Grey, and this makes for such an engaging and entertaining read.

Be warned , though, this is not for the faint of heart, knowing what a Cat’s Meat Man is something I hadn’t anticipated finding out about and was duly horrifying. The situation of such wildly differing social classes, expectations on them in terms of behaviour and life choices is so well realised, the way that each story is both a stand alone and then a linking device, made it a collection to tear through, eagerly wanting to move onto the next step in the discovery of what , or who, the Ripper is.

And ultimately, it is an exploration of the place that London has in raising, creating, hiding, and never really knowing the truly monstrous that walk amomgst us…

About the author…

Jack was born in Portsmouth, U.K. in 1989. One June day in 2021, the impulse to write a short story came to him suddenly after a particularly vivid nightmare. That first short story, The Cat’s Meat Man, was published in a horror anthology several months later. More stories followed, and by the end of the summer, he had a total of ten short stories, one novelette, and three poems to his name which were subsequently published as a collection by Blood Rites Publishing in January 2022. That collection was Ripper Country.

In the autumn of 2021, Jack self-published the short stories ‘React and ‘Driving In The Dark’, both of which were met with largely positive reviews. His second collection of short stories, Dark Lines, was published in the spring of 2022 by DarkLit Press. Jack has also had stories featured in the horror anthologies, ‘Dead Of Night’ and ‘Terror In The Trench‘, in addition to pieces of flash fiction appearing in the collections, Slice of Paradise and 206 Word Stories.

His third collection of short stories, Warning Signs, is slated for release in the autumn.

Twitter @JHardingAuthor