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Out Now
Maria & The Devil
Description
Set in the wilds of Montana in 1898: Maria lives alone in her isolated cabin. Heavily pregnant, Maria awaits the return of her secret outlaw lover, The Devil. ‘Maria & The Devil’ is about motherhood, solitude, revenge and self-preservation. It is a dark thriller with supernatural undercurrents that come into play when nature and environment clash with the fragility of the mind.
THE DEVIL HAS RIDDEN OUT...
Montana’s most feared outlaw has left his secret lover, Maria, alone in their secluded house deep in the wilds. If he had known that she was pregnant at the time, the Devil might have stayed.That was almost nine months ago and Maria is still awaiting her lover’s return and the arrival of her child. But while Maria waits for the Devil, a vengeful band of gunslingers are tracking him. Led by the relentless Rickman Chill, the gang have ventured deep into the dark wilds of Montana and they will stop at nothing to bring the Devil to justice. Vengeance is a dangerous game, but as the Devil said to Maria before he left her: “There is nothing more dangerous than lovers.”
Written and illustrated by Graham Thomas, ‘Maria & The Devil’ deals with motherhood, solitude, revenge and self-preservation. It is a dark thriller with supernatural undercurrents that come into play when nature and environment clash with the fragility of the mind.
“In Maria and the Devil, Graham Thomas manages to create a very strong story featuring many elements that come together greatly in the beginning as well as in the end. There was a very strong dark and sad tone but on occasion give way to a light-hearted moment. Maria is shown to be a very strong and all she goes though reflects well in her character. And with this edition to the current repertoire of Graham Thomas, he shows that he can write great stories, funny and witty as well as dark and gritty”
Coming Soon
OUR SLATE
TheNeverPress are currently hard at work re-vamping the site and re-working our library. We’ve delisted our legacy titles and taken them back to the workshop. We are in the process of re-editing these books and completely reworking the typesetting to bring them in line with our brand standards.
We will be releasing 2nd editions throughout the next few years and beyond, some with brand new artwork, illustrations and content, as well as producing wonderful audiobook iterations produced in-house and in collaboration with some brilliant actors.
These releases will be available globally through all good online retailers and select bricks and mortar stores. You will also be able to purchase paperbacks directly from us, too.
These are exciting times for TheNeverPress and while our released shelf is small at the moment, it is growing. If any of our re-releases and future works pique your interest then hit the ‘enquire’ buttons to drop us a line - we’re always happy to provide updates and info on our projects… or even discuss how you could become a part of them too!
They say that I am an alien. They say that I am a planet. They say that time is my toy. Simply because I have lived for two hundred and sixty-seven years. But it is my mother who is immortal. Because my mother is a Time Traveller.
JUSTINE FINN IS A PLANET
Justine Finn has lived longer than any one in the history of humankind and, in her two hundred and sixty-seventh year, she finds herself living a peaceful existence inside a beautiful off-world museum where people can study and observe the strange, solitary woman. Justine's peace is interrupted when Luna, the winner of a planet-wide lottery to meet the ancient one, arrives with her youthful questions.
But, like all teenagers, Luna has secrets of her own and it is not long before Justine is forced to reveal the truth about her long-life and the gaps in her history that have been buried for over two hundred years.
Bramble King is a magical realist memoir that navigates oceans of time under sails of love, death, memory and hope.
Coming Later
Some titles a little further down the line. These are in draft and concept stage, but will be arriving with appropriate fanfare soon enough. As with any of our other projects, if these pique you’re interest and you would like to know more about them then just hit the ‘enquire’ button!
A 13 year-old pearl-diver, seeks out a mythical whale to swallow him. Inside its belly, he believes a magical kingdom exists, and through danger and adventure he will seek out the treasure of the Whale’s ambergris. He will steal the treasure and return it to his island, thus restoring the fortunes of his family and ending the island-wide 5-year drought of love
A volume of poetry by Graham Thomas dealing with many shades and tones of ‘ambiguous loss’ - that occurs without closure or clear understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief.
A sibling volume of poetry to Atlas of Ambiguous Loss by Graham Thomas, that talks of the yearning and hope to regain the past and revisit times of joy - and of finding omens and indications that the past will return in everyday moments of the present.
Eugene Bliss experiments with form and structure in this collection of short stories and poetry. Design language also gets a good going over under Mr Bliss’s glazy eyes.
The journal of Dream Investigator travelling through the afterlife in search of his dearly departed Lucy. However, the longer he spends in the transitory wasteland, the more his memory and dreams begin to infiltrate his world pull his mind apart. TheNeverPages is an epic journey across the Other Side and deep into memory.
JOURNAL OF A DREAM INVESTIGATOR
Master G_'s dearly departed Lucy is lost within TheNeverRealm: The transitory wasteland between here and the ever-after where memory does not exist. He knows because he has dreamt it. He must track her down and save her, but TheNeverRealm is already infiltrating his psyche and turning his memories into sand. If Master G_ is to rescue Lucy, he must not only overcome his mental disintegration, but also survive the chaos that awaits him in Pripyat: The city that anchors every reality in the Multiverse.
‘TheNeverPages’ is the journal of a Dream Investigator, a magical-realist science fantasy adventure charting Master G_’s journey between here and the afterlife. It takes place during the exact moment of death, when we step from this world into the next and when our memories, past hopes and sins coalesce and are presented back to us. It is a book about our perception of space, time and reality but above all else,‘TheNeverPages’ is about the lengths we will go to for love.
Some men still hear Hector's words echoing across time. floating through their dreams...chiming in their hearts. "Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter." And so these men, at the herald of war and glory, take up arms and into the fray they leap.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN...
Stranger, come sit with me at the bar and share some of this wine. Dion will replenish us when this carafe is done. I have a tale to tell, if you will indulge me - yes, I am one of those rambling drunks, one of those poor fools who twist and turn and would talk to the wind if the wind would listen. But this drunk has something of worth to impart, if you will indulge me. A story of high action, adventure and adversity. How I came to know this tale isn't important, but it did happen - every word I speak is the truth. These twelve days of violence, betrayal, hope and love really did happen. So, stranger, pull your barstool over and let's drink Dion's wine and let my tale of the twelve days of games begin.
'12 Days of Games' is an epic action thriller set in a crime-ridden city. Gangs roam the streets, causing havoc and mayhem wherever they see it. But the Gods are watching, displeased at the wanton violence - violence that does yield fealty to their eternal power and love. And so, high up in their skyscraper, they set about a trap to fell the disloyal, and honour the just.
'Eugene's On It Again' is a farcical, magical realist day-in-the-life tale of a writer trying to climb over his own doubts, anxieties and those of the locals around him in order to capture that one great idea. This is a book about two things - writing and drinking. Unfortunately for our hero, he is spectacularly good at one of those things. A real natural.
OH EUGENE...
Eugene Bliss hasn't had a dream in a long time. For you and me, that may not pose such a problem. But Eugene is a writer and therefore above everyone else. Eugene needs an idea. Eugene needs a dream. Eugene needs many things but before he gets into all that, he is just going to pop into Jackie Dolan's Cocktail Lounge for a couple. It is his zero birthday after all. Jackie Dolan's Cocktail Lounge is the place for all people at all times. The place to sit. To have an idea. To have a dream. Eugene knows exactly what he is doing.
IN THE CITY OF GUILT AND HOPE...
'This city whose name is lost to memory is as big as any dream and as oppressive as any nightmare. These are stories and poems from the city and the outskirts that attempt to keep it at bay. Explore the streets, ride the buses, climb the highest towers and listen to the inhabitants as they wrestle for the truth within their various sorrows and joys'
'Various Sorrows & Joys' is a collection of short stories and poems that take place within a vast, sprawling city without name or identity. Larger than any dream, more oppressive than any nightmare, it is a place of everything. It is all things to all people, from the beginning of time and until the end of their days, and this is our peon to the inhabitants of that city and all their various hopes and dreams.
Book One of ‘The Roxy Compendium’, ‘Hats off to Brandenburg’ charts the exploits of a troupe of libertine artists and actors as they concoct a plan to ‘Robin Hood’ their way through the London social scene in order to save their beloved theatre. ‘Hats off to Brandenburg’ is a rip-roaring romantic adventure set in a heightened, fantastical version of Regency London.
THE ROXY PLAYHOUSE IS IN TROUBLE
The Roxy Playhouse Irregulars, those libertine artists and dreamers are up to their necks in debt. “Pay up in one month of its curtains for all of you.” Dark times lead to drastic schemes and so the Irregulars decide to reinvent themselves as performance thieves, infiltrate High Society and ‘Robin Hood’ their way through it. However, getting embroiled in a dark and deadly plot to destroy the Monarchy was never part of their script. The Roxy Irregulars will have to stage the performance of their lives if they want to save the day and make it home in time for last orders.
‘Hats off to Brandenburg’ is a fast, fresh, rip-roaring romantic adventure set in a heightened, fantastical version of Regency London. Told in a modern voice and crammed full of action, romance and general derring-do ‘Hats off to Brandenburg’ is adventure reborn.
Book Two of ‘The Roxy Compendium’ and set 26 years prior to the events of ‘Hats off to Brandenburg’, ‘The Other Woman’ is an epic historical adventure that follows a young Abigail Hardwoode as she is yanked from her comfy London home and thrust into the very heart of Paris and the bloody Revolution.
IN THE TIME OF REVOLUTION
Abigail Hardwoode is content – the London Social Scene offers everything a seventeen-year-old girl could want. She has little concern for other people’s problems, least of all those in France where great civil unrest threatens to erupt into bloody revolution… but while the oppressed masses rise up, a new insidious organisation emerges and it seems that Abigail’s parents are incriminated.
Only British secret agent Hilary Weaver believes the Hardwoodes to be innocent. Suddenly Abigail is pulled from her peaceful existence and thrust into the chaos of Revolutionary France on a mission with Hilary to clear the family name…
‘The Other Woman’ is a huge adventure story spanning the first year of the Revolution. From the Chateaux d’If in Marseille, to Paris, across the channel to London and back again to the madness of those dangerous days, ‘The Other Woman’ puts to the test a host of characters embroiled in a dark mystery while all around them falls into chaos.
1. A GIRL ON THE RUN 2. A GUY WITH A GUN 3. ...
One part London
Two parts New York
Mix with Berlin
Pour over Tokyo
Serve after midnight
WELCOME TO HOLSTENWALL CITY
Isabella Aznavour doesn't just hold the stage every night at Club Baraka, belting out jazz numbers backed by her effortlessly cool Sinnermen... she is also the best safe cracker in town.
Stefano Magellan is a cop on the take and in way over his head with the sharks. But he has a plan - Magellan knows that somewhere in the city is a hidden vault that is the answer to all his problems. All he needs is someone to crack it for him.
Herbie Bird is pretty much just a trumpet player, down on his luck. He doesn't even have a gun...but he's got heart and sometimes that can get you far. It can also get you in trouble with jazz singers, safe crackers and crooked cops.
'That Aznavour Melody' is a left field post-modern crime story concerning a trumpet player and a jazz singer mixed up in a genre they want out of. Fast, freewheeling and fun, this book is a love letter to European cinema of the 60s and 70s
'Love Is Not The End' is an unfinished magical realist drama following the lives, hopes, dreams, fears, secrets and guilts of a collection of people living in a faraway district of our city.
AU REVOIR MR. BLISS
The great unfinished dream of our beloved Eugene Bliss was compiled by his editor from the notes, drafts and ideas he left behind. This edition was presented to those in attendance at the funeral of Mr. Eugene Bliss, who left us on his birthday aged somewhere between thirty-nine and two hundred and sixty-seven.
OUR BELOVED EUGENE BLISS
Eugene Bliss was born in the city by the lake and for his first few years lived in relative comfort with his mother, a renowned baker. As a boy without much to verbally say, and with few friends, he wrote constantly. His mother and neighbours, celebrated illiterates, did not know where Eugene discovered this ability. When Eugene was 16 he moved to the Tropics of Bath and spent his formative years in the Neon District making a name for himself as a barfly writer, fierce drinker and gifted with the golden tongue that saw him never once receive a punch to the nose, despite his volatile melancholia. It wasn’t until Eugene met known explorer and adventurer Szilvia XXX from that dark and deranged land where they speak Italian over breakfast and Hungarian during supper that he settled into his literary groove. Eugene has, by his own proud admission, written more books than he has ever read and while the vast majority reside in his battered notebooks and stuffed in desk drawers, those that have been released are generally received with critical nonchalance. Eugene rarely complained. Eugene Bliss passed away sometime in his two hundredth and sixty-seventh year, found by Ted Bane curled up and smiling in the cubicle of Jackie Dolan’s Cocktail Lounge. His last work ‘Love Is Not The End’ was completed by TheNeverPress and presented to those at his funeral.