Les Daniels – The Black Castle

Les Daniels – The Black Castle (Sphere, 1980)

Blurb:
DAMNED FOR ETERNITY!
In the shadow of the black castle the witches have met. And by sunrise their pagan rites and identities are known to the Grand Inquisitor. Soon a beautiful woman will be consigned to the flames of Hell.
For Don Diego, and his brother, all has gone according to plan. Don Diego has proved his faith to God. Sebastian has served his own dark master. The living and the undead have joined forces to spin a web of perfect evil.
Then, as the beautiful sinner’s life hangs in the balance, Sebastian conceives an unearthly passion for her body ‑ and her soul. Brother must fight brother in a terrifying struggle for control of the demonic powers housed within THE BLACK CASTLE.

William Hope Hodgson – Carnacki The Ghost-Finder

William Hope Hodgson – Carnacki The Ghost-Finder [# 6] (Sphere, 1974)

Blurb

Carnacki   …. ‘ghost finder’ and ‘ghost breaker’, a psychic sleuth fighting against sinister forces from Outside. These nine spinetingling tales of conflict with dark powers lurking on the rim of human consciousness include such classics as The Gateway of the Monster, The Thing Invisible and The Searcher of the End House.

Carnacki The Ghost-Finder is Volume 6 in the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult.

Sax Rohmer – Brood of the Witch Queen

Sax Rohmer – Brood of the Witch Queen [# 41]    (Sphere 1976)

Blurb:

What was Anthony Ferrara doing in a darkened room with a fire burning on a hot summer night? What are the ‘unholy’ things he brought back from a holiday in Egypt? Above all, who is he? Ferrara’s friend Robert Cairn begins to suspect the answers – but the power which confronts him is more terrifying than he could ever have imagined. Long forgotten evil has come out of the darkness.  The smell of it, the chill of it, hang menacingly in the air.

Thanks to Nightreader for the cover scan and blurb.

Brood of the Witch Queen is Volume 41 in the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult

Gerald Suster – The Devil’s Maze

Gerald Suster – The Devil’s Maze (Sphere, 1979)

 

With his death in November 1977, Dennis Wheatley left a vacancy for a new British dark master of Black Magic, and three of the applicants, as it were, were serious occultists turned pulp horror authors Jack Shackleford, Eric Erickson and Gerald Suster. The Devil’s Maze, Suster’s debut, has so far eluded me, but writing in the current Paperback Fanatic, Stephen Sennitt has no hesitation in proclaiming it Suster’s finest novel, a tribute to Arthur Machen which takes the Welsh mystic’s The Three Imposters as its inspiration.

James Darke – Witches #7 The Feud

James Darke – Witches #7 The Feud (Sphere, 1986)

SUMMONS TO THE SACRIFICE!

‘It is when you think yourself safe,’ said John Ferris as he sheltered from the bitter wind, ‘that you are most at risk.’ And his words proved chillingly prophetic. For though he had suffered grievously from the ministrations of those evil men – and women – who celebrated the Black Arts, he could little have guessed how close at hand his enemies were. Not many leagues distant, in cellars that reeked of monkshood, henbane and thorn-apple, dark garbed figures with arcane names were pursuing their gruesome rites by the sinister light of black candles. And before long even the watchful Ferris would be lured into their midst, and find himself as helpless as a new-born babe in the face of their fiendish magick…

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for the cover scan and blurb