Blackwell’s Manchester are thrilled to welcome Dorian Ravenscroft to discuss their debut novel, The White North Has Thy Bones with Talking Scared podcast’s Neil McRobert.

Doors: 6.30pm, Starts: 6.45pm

General admission is £5 or included in the price of a Book & Ticket.

About the book:

Eight years ago, HMS Melpomene met disaster on her search for the missing Franklin polar expedition. A tiny handful of survivors returned home against all odds; now, one of them is to be hanged for a murder he claims no memory of committing. Among the spectators is ambitious London newsman, Harry Lambert, obsessed by the Melpomene story and the question of what could drive a hero of the Arctic to such an end.

His search for answers takes him to the door of Sidney Blakely, the survivors’ charismatic leader turned Spiritualist medium – a power granted to him, he says, in the thin-veiled North. Living with him is Lieutenant Taylor who claims a darker ‘gift’: to be a vessel for possession by spirits of the dead. Harry doesn’t believe a word of it. But as the true, bloody story behind Melpomene’s end unfolds, he begins to wonder.

Blakely’s revelations of desperate mutiny and a hierarchy out of its depth are shocking enough. But between these lines are whispers of unquiet ghosts, and more than ordinarily savage beasts. In the gaps between what is said and unsaid, what can be believed is as shifting and unstable as the ice itself.

Harry knows what Melpomene’s crew left in the Arctic. But what did they bring back?

About the author:

Dorian Ravenscroft is a queer author based in London. Their stories are often influenced by their experience growing up in the Northwest of England, surrounded by nature and the creative magic of a mother who paints fairies for a living.

Dorian likes to write complicated, nuanced tales featuring complicated, nuanced LGBTQ characters, and has always found their inspiration in horror and history. Their greatest early supporter was their late grandmother, who encouraged Dorian to write from a young age.

When not writing or reading, Dorian studies law at Birkbeck College, University of London, and enjoys museums, long walks, and being on a body of water in any way possible.