Hearth of Darkness

The doorbell rings in the middle of the night with no one there. The shower turns on by itself. So does the radio. Some rooms always stay colder than others, no matter how high the heating is turned up.

Everyone says: buy the ugliest house on the street – buy it cheap, do it up. But what if the house you threw everything into turned out to be as ugly on the inside as on the outside? What would you do if you saw shadows where there shouldn’t be any? If slugs started to fall from the ceiling? If you constantly felt something eerie following you around?

Matt Blake tells the powerful true story of discovering his new home was once the lair of the E17 Nightstalker. It was meant to be a refuge for him and his two-year-old daughter after a painful divorce. But unravelling the chilling secrets of the past threatens to suffocate the present. Can a house be haunted by a bad past? And how does a rationalist who doesn’t believe in religion or ghosts make sense of the paranormal?

Matt turns to the CofE’s ‘Deliverance Ministry’ for advice on ‘place memories.’ He speaks to scientists to evaluate quantum mechanics, 'morphic resonance', the mysterious power of 'chemosignalling', and the theory of ‘emotional residue’; to estate agents about how they sell ‘cursed’ properties; to proponents of the theory of geopathic stress; and to psychologists about the human brain’s ineptitude in processing the ocean of electromagnetic radiation that surrounds us.

Hearth of Darkness is a unique blend of memoir, true crime and paranormal investigation, framed by the deeply felt quest to feel safe and find peace at home.