When young Lucian Miller visits the house of a friend it is everything he had long fantasised about; decay and grandeur, lofty rooms, dark red shadows and dust. The evening, however, is a disaster, and Lucian finds himself apparently alone with the sophisticated but troubled Miranda Honeyman. They shut all of the doors in an attempt to keep their problems out, but it soon becomes apparent that someone else may have access to the house. On the threshold of adulthood, in a heightening atmosphere of sexual uncertainty and violence, Lucian tries to make sense of what is happening around him.

"I was searching for The Dark Return of Time on the 'net. It's odd, but there isn't a copy for sale anywhere, and it doesn't turn up on the British Library catalogue, the Library of Congress website, or the Biblioteque Nationale." — The Dark Return of Time The past doesn’t always stay where it should. It is as though somebody, or something, is forever trying to bring it painfully into the present. Flavian Bennett is trying to leave his past behind when he goes to work in his father’s bookshop in Paris. But a curious customer, Reginald Hopper, is desperate to resurrect his own murky origins. Hopper believes that a rare and mysterious book, The Dark Return of Time, may be the key to what happened before he arrived in Paris. In this quiet thriller by R.B. Russell, the futures — and pasts — of these two men will soon cross. R.B. Russell is an English author, born in Sussex, and the co-proprietor of the independent publishing house Tartarus Press, which he runs with his partner Rosalie Parker. He has had three collections of his own short stories published, Putting the Pieces in Place (2009), Literary Remains (2010) and Leave Your Sleep (2012); a novella, Bloody Baudelaire (2009), and a collected edition, Ghosts (2012). He is also, occasionally, an illustrator and songwriter, and enjoys making videos.

If only we would take the time to look a little closer, delve a little deeeper, when ordinary life goes awry, we might find the world more strange and unexpected than we ever could have imagined... Following on from Literary Remains, R.B. Russell’s previous collection for PS Publishing, the twelve stories of Leave Your Sleep concern sex and death, love and loss. Russell allows his characters to disappear, slip into alternate realities, or re-write their own histories. They find they are able to do the most extraordinary things, even though they may not immediately realise it. And who is in control of their actions, or those around them? In ‘An Unconventional Exorcism’, why is a young woman who claims to talk to the dead so shocked when her aunt comes back to haunt her? In ‘The Red Rose and the Cross of Gold’, when an engineer in a crumbling city stumbles upon a messy murder, who cleans up afterwards? And in ‘Mathilde’, what do lovers do when everyone is against their relationship? These and other questions are explored in Russell’s beautifully evocative prose.CONTENTS An Unconventional Exorcism The Red Rose and the Cross of Gold Leave Your Sleep The Restaurant San Martín Another Perspective The Dress A Woman of the Party  Mathilde A False Impression Gala Gladkov’s Exquisite Process Reunion  The Beautiful Room

In this collection love and loss tear at the fabric of everyday life and distort reality. What was once objectively familiar is tainted by uncertainty, and soon everything becomes subtly and terrifyingly altered. In "Loup-garou" a young man watches his own past re-enacted as an avante garde French film. In "Llanfihangel" memories of the past are shown to be incorrect and misinterpreted. In Russell's stories even the present appears to be open to misunderstanding. When those around you insist that they see they world differently at least you can argue with them. But when you realise that you cannot rely on your own senses then the world becomes a terrifying place indeed **