RING THE BELLS: Pre-Christmas Capers with C. K. McDonnell

  • DATE

    11 December 2025

  • TIME

    6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

  • AGES

    All ages welcome

  • PRICE

    £4

  • VENUE

    Blackwell's Bookshop Manchester
    University Green, 146 Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9GP

  • TICKET INFO

    Book tickets

  • THEME

    Comedy

    Publishing

    Read

  • ORGANISER

    Blackwell's Bookshop

We are excited to welcome C. K. McDonnell back to Blackwell’s to celebrate his fifth book in the Stranger Times series, Ring The Bells!

Join us for a special pre-Christmas event to celebrate the darker side of the festive season with Caimh and guests!

Doors: 6.30pm, starts: 6.45pm

Tickets are £4, or free when purchasing a copy of the book with your ticket, which is available as a special offer of £15 for this event only.

About the Book:

For most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation, but not for the staff of The Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn’t unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book-club-triple-murder either, as it features a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity who has broken through from another dimension and is hellbent on vengeance. He’s made a list, but he’s not checking it twice as the whole of humanity is on it. Who would want to summon such a thing? And how is anyone going to be able to send it back?

As if that wasn’t enough to be dealing with, a shocking revelation about a member of The Stranger Times team’s past brings family together, but not in a way that’s ever going to make it into a Hallmark movie.

Featuring demonically possessed Santas, blood-thirsty books and the ghost of a legendary nightclub, it’s beginning to look a lot like a Christmas apocalypse…

About the author:

Born in Limerick and raised in Dublin, C K (Caimh) McDonnell is a former stand-up comedian and TV writer. He performed all around the world, had several well-received Edinburgh shows and supported acts such as Sarah Millican on tour before hanging up his clowning shoes to concentrate on writing. He has also written for numerous TV shows and been nominated for a Kid’s TV BAFTA.

His debut novel, A Man With One of Those Faces- a comic crime novel – was published in 2016 and spawned The Dublin Trilogy books and the spin-off McGarry Stateside series. They have been Amazon bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. As C. K. McDonnell, he is the author ofThe Stranger Times series contemporary comic fantasy series.

Caimh lives in Manchester. To find out more, visit whitehairedirishman.com