The Books


Dark Harbour paperbackImagine an alternate reality… fairly identical to our own… but with various random differences… maybe there’s no Antiques Roadshow on television, Jedward play central defence for Grimsby Town, and there are no red M&Ms. There’s a certain something in one particular alternate reality, a collection of tales known as the Dark Harbour books, written by a stranger called Joseph Kiel, and one of these books has evidently slipped through a wormhole into our dimension.

It is not fully known how he brought it here –  one day someone in a quaint coffee shop in Sleaford just found it left on a table – but what’s apparent is that The Tale of the Soul Searcher is the beginning of a dark and mystical saga about an array of colourful characters who live in this secluded (and unknown) town in England.

ABuy the book now on Amazon! bestseller in its originating universe, this mysterious book was transcribed and published by the man from the coffee shop (Richard Dutton) so that we can all get our heads around this new dimension. He has released it on Amazon as a kindle ebook, or there’s a print version too for those who prefer a more traditional reading experience.

In 2017, Richard was handed the follow-up novel in the Dark Harbour series, The Tale of the Night Shiner. He now awaits the concluding part of the trilogy, but he anticipates that could take some time…

 

The Tale of the Soul SearcherDark Harbour book cover

English Literature student Danny is new to the town. Together with his fellow college buddies they’re beginning to discover the lurid secrets of their home: there’s a sinister vigilante organisation called Halo of Fires who go round delivering karma to wrongdoers… there’s Floyd, the twisted owner of the seaside amusements, whose sidekick is a terrifying freak of nature… and there’s the mysterious Stella, the most beautiful girl in the whole town, and it just so happens that Danny is in love with her…

The various temptations around Danny and his friends entice them on journeys that, at first, threaten their friendships… then threaten their own lives…

A jealous boyfriend warning Danny to stay away from Stella… Halo of Fires caught up in an old race to find a powerful treasure that’s hidden somewhere in the town. It is said that whoever holds this treasure is able to look into your soul… and it’s no secret that people would kill to get hold of it.

Ultimately though it seems that a lot of people have some serious soul searching to do…

The Tale of the Soul Searcher is a story of profound lost love, of an anger impatiently waiting to be unleashed, of monsters and karmic angels, and of the search for our own soul…

 

The Tale of the Night Shiner

The Tale of the Night ShinerDanny is back in town, still haunted by the fleeting romance he shared with the beautiful siren Stella. A few years have passed since that fling, and Danny’s life is now a wreck, but being back here triggers a memory… one that fills his life with meaning once more. Unfortunately Danny really hasn’t picked the right time to be in Dark Harbour as a terrifying creature of the night that has haunted the town down the centuries has also made its return…

The Night Shiner, a hideous monster with black wings, preys on people in the middle of the night, swooping down on all the losers and the wasters, mercilessly tearing their bodies to shreds and annihilating their souls… The terror of the Night Shiner is a fate worse than death.

With all the townsfolk wondering who will be next, a consortium bands together in the hope that they can hire the local vigilante organisation, Halo of Fires, so that they can succeed at the impossible task and destroy the monster once and for all.

But the Fires are busy with their own work of punishing abusers and transgressors, and they’ve never wanted to be the heroes of Dark Harbour. That is until they discover some forgotten truths about themselves, things that have become lost in time, and when an unlikely individual comes to them pleading for help, they finally realise that destiny is calling them…

The Tale of the Night Shiner is a thrilling story of the terrors that haunt us in the middle of the night, of the mysterious hands that manipulate us to our corruption, and of how our battles drag us down to an even greater darkness…

 

The Town

The town of Dark HarbourSo you may ask where is this strange town called Dark Harbour? It seems to be a lot like all the other seaside towns of England, a formerly glorious and majestic carnival of holidaying fun by the expanse of the blue horizon. They’d all go there, back in the day. And a lot of daytrippers still do, those that are caught by its mysterious charm. You see, if you were to scratch the surface, veer away from the beaten path, you’d find many matters of intrigue there. More than you would at Skegness and Blackpool, for example.

Wandering only amongst the ten penny falls and the jaded sea front rides you won’t meet any of the strange characters that inhabit this place… evil creatures of the night, sirens singing by the shoreline, nefarious criminal operatives. And hovering over all this is an organisation that plies its trade in delivering vengeance on those individuals who dare to step onto the forbidden paths of wrongdoing. Halo of Fires is a force that will deliver your karma to you. You should be warned, in case you ever think about stepping out of line in this town.

This place should be familiar to you, and yet unfamiliar. It’s part of your world, and yet it’s not. You’d find something of your own self there, echoes from the darkest corner of your soul. But deep within this despair, the people of this town are searching… for love… for fortune… for both.