Halloween Book Sale

October 28, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry

Greetings!

I hope you’re all well, and weathering these troubled times with grace and dignity. Yeah, okay, I think most of us are freaking out and flailing around in some way or another. Things are weird. Bad, even. That aside, it is human nature to focus on dreadful things and overlook nice ones — that 9000-year-old reptile brain survival thing that media and algorithms are very good at manipulating. Sadly these days, they have a great deal to work with, god help us.

This is my favorite time of year. Predictably, my writing is full of dark and spooky things, monsters, curses, wicked trees, otherworldly villains and the like, mostly under the banner of high fantasy. But not entirely.

Recently, I broke ranks and wrote a Gothic horror novella about a crossroads bargain, which involves a deal made between a desperate (i.e., stupid) human and an otherworld entity, in the liminal space where two paths meet. Such bargains are tricky and usually result in unpleasant consequences. This one did—a centuries-old curse by the Unseelie Fae, more specifically, a wicked elf with an army and an axe to grind.

Enter Elspet, the unfortunate progeny of this bargain, a sensitive, hyper-vigilant young woman who sees things in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper—including a beautiful elven lord who is the ancient enemy of the aforementioned bastard.

Against the backdrop of an old, neurotic family, a creepy forest bordering the estate, a string of grisly, unexplained deaths and an antagonistic aunt, Elspet lands into a situation that forces her to make a devastating sacrifice that brings her to the threshold of the otherworld…and herself.

For a limited time, A Northward Gaze will be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon.
Read the story for free with Kindle Unlimited.

Be well, stay safe, and Happy Halloween! And remember, even the most ghastly, tragic tales can have a silver lining.

The Metamorphosis of a Book Cover

January 31, 2023June 20, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry / 2 Comments

Earlier this year, I released a novella called The Crossroads Bargain, a gothic fantasy tale about an old forest with a dark history, a tryst with an elven lord, a lot of unexplained deaths and disappearances, and a faerie curse cast in a centuries-old crossroads bargain.

I created the cover art in the usual way. But for some reason, it unsettled me; it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. There were nervous whispers. I brushed them aside, knowing full well how reckless that is.

Just recently, I did a painting of a scene from the book, in which our protagonist, a sensitive, tormented sort, fades into the faerie realm and there sees the hall of an elven lord tucked into the forest. As I worked on this, a calm whisper suggested that it might make a good cover image.

Okay but I’m keeping that spiderweb.

Then, I suddenly thought of a title, from a saying in the story that describes what to do on a crossroads if you want to summon something from the otherworld:

A northward gaze; a wish as clear as a mountain stream; and a willingness to sacrifice the unimaginable.

Yeah, that little bit of advice causes all manner of horrors, by the way. But never mind that. My new cover came together so beautifully, I decided to change it. It captures the vibe of the story well.

A Northward Gaze is now available on Amazon. Oh, and about those crossroads instructions. Don’t try that shit at home.

A Northward Gaze, A Novella

October 23, 2022October 28, 2025 / F.T. McKinstry

Previously published as The Crossroads Bargain by F.T. McKinstry.

Elspet’s mother died between the worlds, staring with eyes of lily white. A common occurrence in their bloodline, it is said. Denied a grave in hallowed ground, she is now only a whisper in the dark forest that borders the estate.

Grieving amidst a turbulent household of superstitious servants, the mysterious departure of her father, and an ambitious aunt with a draconian agenda, Elspet begins to see faces and shapes in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper. Only she knows the reason for the series of grisly, unexplained deaths that follow her seduction by the beautiful elven lord who appears to her amidst the faded leaves.

What Elspet doesn’t know is the high cost of consorting with the Fae. For not even her mother’s books, the village witch, or the Fae themselves can stop her inexorable descent into the labyrinth of a faerie curse put on her bloodline in a centuries-old crossroads bargain—a curse she can only end with blood magic and the name of her lover’s most terrible enemy.

Novella, 125 pages
Second edition

Amazon

Tolkien Meets Poe

October 15, 2022July 4, 2024 / F.T. McKinstry

I am a passionate and dedicated fan of high fantasy; that is, any world other than this one and preferably one that smacks of a fairy tale, though not in a wholesome way. You know, like those old, dark Irish or German fairy tales that are not written for children. Beautiful things cast long shadows, and the summit is never far from the abyss kind of thing. Think J.R.R. Tolkien meets Edgar Allan Poe.

I started reading these authors roughly around the same time, when I was a kid in the 70s. Tolkien changed my life, I’ll just say that. Among other things, Poe’s short stories and a steady diet of Dark Shadows messed me up properly and got me hooked on Gothic Horror.

So this kind of crept up on me recently, the way the universe sometimes gives you a bitch slap so you’ll recognize what you’ve been looking at all along. While I love Gothic Horror, especially the supernatural–ghosts, werewolves, vampires, witches and the like–I never sat down and tried to write something like that, not specifically. But it was there nonetheless, slinking around in my work like a shadow in the corner of my eye.

Then this happened: A story flashed into my head. It was right out of one of those 60s pulp Gothic Horror novels, with a voluptuous sex kitten in a white nightgown fleeing over the moors from a black castle on the hill. It also featured the kind of fairytale lore I like to write into high fantasy novels. Yeah. My subsequent internal dialogue went something like this:

Writer me: I don’t know how to write this stuff.
Smarter me: You’ve been writing this stuff for years.
Writer me: Rubbish. This isn’t fantasy.
Smarter me: Um. It has elves in it.
Writer me: So. He’s not–
Smarter me: He’s a fucking elf. Beautiful, moves between the worlds, enchanting, seductive, and sneaky. So he’s not from the House of Fëanor, big deal.
Writer me: It’ll suck. You suck.
Smarter me: Whatever. Get to work.

So I did. It’s a novella called A Northward Gaze. A manor hall bordering an old forest with a dark history, a family curse, a string of grisly, unexplained deaths and a fey young woman who sees otherworld beings in the floral patterns of her bedroom wallpaper. Spoiler alert: Our aforementioned elf is one of them and he’s up to no good. Well, maybe. Maybe not. The Fae are tricky like that.