Service

Switchblade sharp fiction for the work-life unbalanced GLEN JAMES BROWN

Danielle MacKinnons nearly thirty and still hasnt got her life sorted. Her job as a PA to the blithely privileged Jeannie is boring, and existentially depressing, and now, after a break-up, she needs to find somewhere to live for the next two months.

Her best friends Ben and Anita are keen to help, but Danielles broke, burning through couches and good-will, until she gets an unexpected proposal from Jeannie. Danielle can stay at Westerley, the sprawling Yorkshire estate where Jeannie grew up. They need someone to look after the old place anyway. Shed be doing them a favour.

At Westerley, Danielle luxuriates in her idyllic, borrowed life as lady of the manor - but the house is big, old and uneasy. Its a strange place to live alone. The sleep paralysis that began in London is beginning to worsen.

And then Jeannie arrives unannounced. Working for her, serving her, living in her house, the razor-thin boundaries begin Danielle and her boss begin to dissolve. Soon their relationship slides into something older, stranger and harder to name.

Something is happening at Westerley. Things where they shouldnt be. The shadow of a maid sweeping in the dawn light. But is the house really haunted? Or is Danielle?