130 Union Road
Oswaldtwistle
Accrington
Lancashire
BB5 3DR
United Kingdom

Telephone: 01254-237418
e-mail: rileybooks@ntlworld.com

Welcome to the home of Riley Books

Please search or browse our inventory of hard to find, out of print, used, and rare books. If you can't find what you like please fill out our off-line search form and we will search our off-line stock for you

OUR SPECIALITIES

Our main specialities are history, biographies, first editions, science fiction, fantasy, horror, occult and folio books, though we also have a large stock of TV/film-related books, sport, travel, crime, true crime, the classics and general fiction.

Recent interview with David Riley, co-owner of Riley Books, in the Financial Times, March 17th, 2007:

Financial Times

WHERE TO FIND US

We are a high street bookshop in the middle of Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire.(With ample parking avalable at the rear)

We are usually open between 10.30 in the morning till 5.30 at night Tuesday to Friday, though if you are travelling any distance to visit us please ring first to make sure we are open that day. We do occasionally take holidays - or go off buying new stocks of books for the shop!

We are, however, available for telephone calls 7 days a week. CATALYSTS
by
Bill Gauthier

 

Now Available - £7.00 plus £1.50 p&p
Published by Dark Discoveries Publications.

A strange growth that will change a man.... People with open umbrellas when no rain is in sight.... An old suitcase with a haunting past and the man who decides to change its future.... A vengeful victim of a house fire.... A mattress that can bring a man hope in his dreams.... A mother so bent that she does the unthinkable to keep "her baby" from growing up.... These are only the catalysts.
Dark Discoveries Publications is proud to present CATALYSTS, the debut short story collection by regular DARK DISCOVERIES contributor Bill Gauthier. Thirteen darkly fantastic tales with art by Alan M. Clark and a foreword by Bram Stoker Award-winning author and editor Thomas F. Monteleone.
“Bill writes about real people experiencing surreal events. He makes you care about both the protagonists and the situations entangling them. His writer’s toolbox already has lots of the necessary implements and gadgets - emotion, passion, intellect and a sense of humor.” - Thomas F. Monteleone (from the Forward)
"...I was trés impressed to say the least. I expect to see [Bill] around in some other pro markets in the very near future!" - Bev Vincent, author of The Road to the Dark Tower.
Contents:
                              • Cover Art by Alan M. Clark
                              • Forward by Thomas F. Monteleone
                              • Introduction by Bill Gauthier
                              • “Growth of Alan Ashley”
                              • “Drawn In”
                              • “Inquisitor, Inc.”
                              • “You Make My Flesh Crawl”
                              • “Icarus Falling”
                              • “Burned Out”
                              • “Snow Day”
                              • “Umbrella People”
                              • “Stray Cats”
                              • “Old Nelly's High Price” 
                              • “Something in the Pipes”
                              • “Fun Gus the Tap Dance Man”
                              • “Mommy's Baby Don't Need to Grow Up”
                              • Afterword by Bill Gauthier

DIRTY PRAYERS
by
Gary McMahon

£7.99 plus £1.50 p&p.
Published by Gray Friar Press. 287 pages.

These tortured tales represent the desperate prayers of shattered people. Among them you will find: a man who is haunted by the sound of sentient alarms, a psychologically damaged brother and sister whose union produces something much worse than simple dread, a group of men whose childhood sins have mutated into something monstrous aboard an old stone boat, a possibly cursed dying woman who goes in search of one last taste of passion before cancer claims her…
External terror meets inner dread and the afterlife may just be a place where all our past mistakes solidify and turn on us like a pack of ravening dogs. These bleak offerings will reveal the darkness that dwells at the core of modern existence, where society is a forgotten notion, religion is a dirty word, love lies bleeding in the gutter, and everyone must face their demons alone.
Kneeling at the altar of broken hearts, you will learn that sometimes it is better if our prayers remain unanswered.

STAINS
by
Paul Finch

 

Limited Edition hardback, signed by Paul Finch & Simon Clark

This is a new book direct from the publisher (Gray Friar Press, 19, Ruffield Side, Delph Hill, Wyke, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8DP, United Kingdom.)

£19.00 plus postage and packing

Stain: Stigma; blemish; a discolouration by foreign matter; an ugly blot; an indelible mark; a dark reminder of something unpleasant.

From the pen of Paul Finch, nine flights of tortured imagination to see you through the long winter nights:

The fictional curse that became a mind-shattering reality ...
The ancient entity that roamed the desolate wood ...
The maniac who liked to melt womens' faces ...
The movie-makers who sought the most blighted town they could, and found it ...

Tales of chilling horror set in a contemporary and recognisable world.

That is Paul Finch's speciality.

In his own words, he likes to describe hideous events that could be taking place in the very next street to your own. He draws on his real-life experience as a police officer and journalist to portray a modern society literally plagued by evil. Sometimes it's the evil to be found in Man, but most often it's evil of a far less common-garden variety. In this latest collection of his stories (which includes three brand-new novellas), the supernatural is at least as prevalent as the everyday. At any moment the calamitous past might invade the powder-keg present; around ordinary corners may lurk the most extreme horrors of myth and magic; everywhere his characters look - down road and path, in town and country - there's something different, something not quite right, something that's less normality and more an aberration.
Yet this isn't grue, these aren't chills of the in-yer-face variety. That's not Finch's style at all. In this book heads will roll and the blood will run red, but the enemies of mankind are often only heard or half-glimpsed. It's his quest to keep you wondering, keep you guessing, keep you nervously turning the pages.

Read on, we dare you ...

THE FACULTY OF TERROR
by
John LLewellyn Probert

Introduction by Paul Finch

This is a new book direct from the publisher (Gray Friar Press, 19, Ruffield Side, Delph Hill, Wyke, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8DP, United Kingdom.)

Four secretaries working a late shift in a deserted office block….

A young man who sees the ghost of his dead father in wet glass….

The British underworld boss who will do anything to restore his tortured wife’s good looks…

The old cottage in the Wye Valley whose walls are soaked with blood…

An art gallery where patrons become part of the paintings….

A shop where you can buy anything your heart desires, but at a terrible price….

When music graduate Paul Dearden accepts an invitation to dinner at his old university the last thing he expects is an evening of the macabre. Over the finest food and drink he learns that the institution has a history steeped in blood. Paul cannot believe that the tales he is told by his dining companions are true, even though none of them are as cruel or as terrifying as the story he needs to tell.

In the tradition of classic British anthology horror films like ‘The House that Dripped Blood’, ‘Asylum’ and ‘From Beyond the Grave’, John Llewellyn Probert’s ‘The Faculty of Terror’ offers six tales of terror linked by a framework story, the climax of which will earn all who survive it a first class degree in spine tingling horror!

Trade Paperback £7.50 plus p&p

DARK CORNERS
by Stephen Volk

Introduction by Tim Lebbon

This is a new book direct from the publisher (Gray Friar Press, 19, Ruffield Side, Delph Hill, Wyke, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8DP, United Kingdom.)

Stephen Volk outraged the critics with his first screenplay, Ken Russell's Gothic, and shocked an unsuspecting nation with his notorious BBC TV Halloween hoax "Ghostwatch". His new gripping supernatural drama series "Afterlife" was called "Terrific television" (The Guardian) and "Unmissable" (Mail on Sunday).

This first collection of his short fiction, like his best work for the screen, combines scenes of intense physical and psychological horror, with moments of aching sadness and poignancy. Not without occasional stabs of black humour.

Whether exploring traditional ghost stories reminiscent of the past, disturbing crimes of the present, or the wild imaginings of a far flung future, Volk delights in the dark corners of haunted houses and haunted people alike."

Trade paperback, 249 pages £8.50 plus p&p

 

BERNIE HERRMANN'S
MANIC SEXTET

This is a new book direct from the publisher (Gray Friar Press, 19, Ruffield Side, Delph Hill, Wyke, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8DP, United Kingdom.)

Trade paperback. £5.50 each, plus p&p (recommended price £5.99)

Edgar Allan Poe suggested that the short story was the ideal vehicle for the dark tale, yet some of the finest ever written — to take just two examples, Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows' and H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out Of Space' — are far longer. The novella, or novelette, is an enduringly popular form in the field of imaginative literature, yet few books celebrate it exclusively.

This collection seeks to show how the longer short story, or the very short novel, is ideally suited to the demands of creating an atmosphere, telling an involving tale, and developing compelling characters. The authors here are all masters of their craft: they know how to combine economy with broad visions of fear.

                        Introduction by Mike O'Driscoll (prelude)
                        Paul Finch - Hobhook (allegro)
                        Donald Pulker - Forced Perspective (largo)
                        Andrew Hook - Live From The Hippodrome (scherzo)
                        Gary McMahon - Like A Stone (elegy)
                        Adam L. G. Nevill - The Other Occupant (fugue)
                        Rhys Hughes - The Hydrothermal Reich (capriccio)
                        Simon Strantzas - Fading Light (encore)

                        Cover by Ben Baldwin

POE'S PROGENY

 

Edited by Gary Fry

This is a new book direct from the publisher.(Gray Friar Press, 19, Ruffield Side, Delph Hill, Wyke, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8DP, United Kingdom.)

Trade paperback. £11.50 each, plus p&p (recommended price £11.99)

Too often contemporary horror fiction denies, forgets or is even unaware of its roots in classic dark literature. The man legitimately called the father of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe, thrust terror into the soul of humanity, while his illegitimate descendants located it in the cosmos, across nations, in science, through history, in nature, in the city - in short, wherever people come together and invariably attempt to dull their imaginations. But experience is always too cruel.

These themes are of course relevant today.

This book aims to show how the ideas and techniques of the greats might be utilised to explore the modern world. Here you'll find neither pastiche nor period prose, rather thoroughly contemporary visions whose aging, tell-tale heart still beats with dismaying memory of the past and irrepressible fear for the future...

Contains an introduction by Michael Marshall Smith and stories by Mike O'Driscoll, Mark Morris, Antony Mann, Melvin Cartagena, Tim Lebbon, Steve Savile, Joel Lane, Greg Beatty, Chico Kidd, Conrad Williams, Jon Hartless, Nicholas Royle, Kathy Sedia, Dominick Cancilla, Stephen Volk, Gary Fry, Andrew Hook, Gene Stewart, Rhys Hughes, Gary McMahon, Adam L. G. Nevill, John L. Probert, Allen Ashley, Richard Gavin, Kevin L. Donihe, Neil Ayres, Robert Swartwood, Simon Clark, Donald R. Burleson, Ramsey Campbell.

PHANTOMS OF VENICE

Edited by
David A. Sutton

 

Nominated for the British Fantasy Award - An anthology of ghost and horror stories set in the world’s most romantic city. Foreword by Joel Lane; Cover art by Harry O. Morris; Limited edition hardback; dust-wrap; 230pp; ISBN 0-9539032-1-4

£20.00 plus postage and packing

Phantoms, serial-killers, revenge, possession, plague-victims and the devil incarnate… Join the throng of shades and monsters in ten disturbing tales of Venice by masters of the macabre.

New stories by award-winning authors: Brian Stableford, Peter Tremayne, Anne Gay, Tim Lebbon, Conrad Williams, Cherry Wilder, Eddy C. Bertin, Mike Chinn, Pauline E. Dungate, David Sutton. Cover Art by Harry O. Morris.

“There have been ghost and horror stories located in just about every country of the world, and in many of their cities. There have been fabled lands and invented locales in which terrors have stalked the unwary traveller. But none of those places, however evocative their names, has the resonance of the ‘Serene Republic’—Venice.”

“... the reader plunges into some fine storytellers and their tales - with no gimmicks or overdone plots... Stories that twist and turn the reader until the end. A wild and wonderful tale told amidst the carnical of Venice (‘The Devil’s Comedy’), one which might come to be regarded a classic.” (Cemetary Dance)

“Here’s what some reviewers have said: “… a handsomely produced collection of ghost and horror stories… ranging from the present to the past, including some traditional ghost stories and others that are quite innovative.” (Science Fiction Chronicle)

“The mix of the everyday present with the mysteries and ancient rites of the past dominate most of the stories… absolutely recommended to lovers of better horror.” (Cerberus Online)

“What a brilliant idea and what an ideal companion on a trip to La Serenissima. Even before you open the book, you are attracted by the jacket design, an elegant modern version of a Canaletto Cappriccio by Harry Morris. The authors in this collection display considerable originality and variety… a very readable anthology.” (All Hallows)

“Ten stories of the supernatural and horror set in the city of Venice, a venue that, with its paradoxical atmosphere combining romance and decay, has always appealed to writers of such work... A collection that’s sure to be loudly applauded by those who appreciate dark fantasy and solid storytelling.” (The 3rd Alternative)