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Adult fiction

Loved the book signing at WGW!

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Wow, Whitby Goth Weekend was amazing last weekend! 

C.M.Vassie was there to sign copies of the new SCRAVIR – Lacklight and to meet hundreds of readers of the SCRAVIR books and the Whitby Trap. 

“It was wonderful to meet fans of the SCRAVIR books,” says the author. “We all have much in common, sharing as we do a deep love of Whitby. It is such an atmospheric place. On the Sunday the sea turned dark and rough, waves smashed the piers, and the Gothic ambience was complete.” 

“The costumes people make and wear are simply amazing, such evil creativity! The shadows spread … a malevolent lacklight leaks from hidden corners, and the Scravir haunt the streets.

If you are too far to pop in to the wonderful independent bookshops in Whitby and Saltburn, you can buy signed copies of all our books in our online bookshop, or purchase unsigned copies from Amazon and other online retailers.

All orders over £20 are carriage-free. Join us in the Lacklight!

SCRAVIR SEQUEL soon to be published

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Fans of SCRAVIR – While Whitby Sleeps will know that the hero, Daniel Murray escaped a castle with a handful of pages stolen from a book. The pages contain dense blocks of letters and symbols he does not understand.

The sequel SCRAVIR II – Twilight, which is published at the end of October, will reveal new information about these symbols, the scravir and their master, Thor Lupei. 

The much awaited sequel is about to be proofread before going to the printers. We will soon be opening pre-orders …

Thank you to all our Scravir readers!!

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Thank you for all the great comments for Scravir on social media. The Injini Press team and author C M Vassie are thrilled and excited at the journey we are taking together with you fuelled by our common love of Gothic tales and of the magical town of Whitby. We have even seen a quiz that takes people round Whitby through the eyes of Scravir!  

Look out for the great review of Scravir- while Whitby Sleeps in the Whitby Advertiser in September and another review coming in the Esk Valley News in October. 

SCRAVIR available at 88 Church Street, Whitby

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If you prefer to buy your books in a physical shop, you can now buy SCRAVIR -while Whitby Sleeps in two of Whitby’s independent book shops! The Whitby Bookshop is at 88 Church Street, just a stone’s throw from Henrietta Street where much of our story takes place.  Holman’s Bookshop is across the harbour at 19-21 Skinner Street.

Or you can buy a signed copy here on our website. And if you buy 2 or more copies we pay the postage! (all calculated at the checkout)


SCRAVIR sells out in Whitby!

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SCRAVIR – while Whitby sleeps has sold out at Holman’s bookshop in Whitby.  Back in stock soon … First edition going quickly now. If you collect signed first editions and love gothic fiction don’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers. Dark things are happening on Henrietta Street!

(7 Jul update: back in stock)

Old texts that inspired Gothic fiction

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For those interested in the old texts that inspired gothic tales of vampires, an interesting place to start is to read The Travels of three English Gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh, being the Grand Tour of Germany, in the year 1734. 

First published in volume IV of The Harleian Miscellany: A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, this work is anonymous but very interesting and entertaining. You can find the original text here and read it for yourself.

C. M. Vassie read it as part of his research for SCRAVIR. 

“What I loved most about Travels of Three English Gentlemen was the language and style,” says Vassie. “The details of observation and the descriptions are wonderful.”

While the Scravir are not vampires, understanding how people hundreds of years ago might have reacted to those menacing beings was important to Vassie.  

Travelling around Europe was a very different undertaking three and four hundred years ago. The poor would have had little opportunity to venture far but in the 17th and 18th centuries young English elites would go on Grand Tours (designed to broaden their horizons) that could last between two and four years.  They would study art, languages, culture and geography.  

Because of the risk of highway robberies, the young gadabouts carried little money. Instead they took letters of credit from reputable London banks.  

The authors of Travels of Three English Gentlemen may well have been such gadabouts.  They provide us with an early description of Vampires.  

It is worth noting that this travelogue is not all about vampires. It also gives many fascinating insights into the flora and fauna the travellers saw on their journey, with descriptions of vampires being interspersed with notes on dormice, glow-worms, bears and river crabs.  A paragraph about witches is as easily followed by a description of wines and pies, peaches and apples as by the history of a local war.

Vassie borrowed the writing style of the journal for a key moment of discovery in SCRAVIR. 

You can learn more about the Grand Tour here.