Netherwood

After personal trauma and professional failure in London, Justine and Adam move to Hastings, hoping that the charming fisherman’s cottage overlooking the sea will be the perfect place to make a new life together. But their new home holds many secrets, including a cave at the back of it, and a witch bottle said to ward off bad spirits. Soon, they discover a dark history that haunts this seaside town.

Former occupant of their house, John Malachy, was an occult celebrity at the height of the Sixties counterculture, obsessed with macabre rituals and chaos magic that led to shocking scandal and his mysterious suicide. Strange events escalate: Justine becomes haunted by the ghost of a young girl, Adam enchanted by an unearthly creature, and they begin to learn of something terrible that Malachy once enacted in the cave.

It all leads back to the notorious Aleister Crowley—the Great Beast—whose death in Hastings years before unleashed a dangerous force that still exerts a powerful influence on our times. This legacy starts a grim chain of events with grave consequences for Justine, Adam, and even the world.

Netherwood by Jake Arnott invites readers into a world where past and present collide, questioning the nature of reality and the unseen forces that shape our lives.