The books
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Thrillers, dark fantasy, action adventure, and horror: stories where history, myth and the supernatural collide. Choose a starting point, browse by genre, or pick a place you want to be taken.
Start at the beginning
Stone of Fire
ARKANE book 1: meet Morgan Sierra and the institute beneath Trafalgar Square, where it all begins.
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The latest novel
Bones of the Deep
She stole their saint. Now the ocean wants her back. Deep-sea adventure horror on the open Pacific.
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Binge a complete trilogy
Map of Shadows
Dark portal fantasy beneath Bath. Three books, one story, an ending that resolves. No waiting.
Start the trilogy →Archaeological & supernatural thrillers
Dr Morgan Sierra and the ARKANE Institute hunt relics, prophecies and sacred places across more than thirty countries. Thirteen books plus a short story, every one built on real history.
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Crime with a supernatural edge
Detective Jamie Brooke and psychic Blake Daniel in a trilogy beneath the respectable surface of the city: body, mind and soul.
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Folk horror
British folklore turned toward the dark: a vineyard that follows an older calendar, a drowned timber circle, a midwinter bargain.
Enter the Blood Vintage world →
Adventure horror
Relentless rescue thrillers that descend into the dark: a father beneath Edinburgh, a salvage crew on the open Pacific.
Survival & disaster
A luxury desert resort, a colossal sandstorm, and twenty-four hours where every guest's secret becomes a weapon. A thriller of civilisational hubris.
Dark fantasy & portal worlds
Beneath Bath Abbey, the Ministry of Maps guards the border to the realm of everything written off the world's maps. Complete, and fully resolved.
Enter the Mapwalker world →
Short stories & collections
Standalone stories and collected volumes: eleven tales of the drowned dead, three fiendish angels, and more.
Travel memoir
Three solo pilgrimages, the Pilgrims' Way, St Cuthbert's Way and the Camino de Santiago, and the lessons they taught about fear, resilience and the way ahead. Winner, Best Non-Fiction/Memoir, Selfies Awards 2024.
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Where do you want to be taken?
Every story is grounded in a real place J.F. Penn has travelled to, and the research trail runs through each book.
Edinburgh
A festival city above, a thousand-year hunger below.
The Dark London trilogyLondon
Psychometry, asylums and the city's buried history.
The Mapwalker trilogyBath
The Ministry of Maps sits beneath the Abbey.
Blood VintageA Somerset vineyard
Award-winning wine on an older calendar than the harvest.
Bones of the DeepThe South Pacific
A salvage yacht, a stolen saint, and the ocean's debt.
Death ValleyThe California desert
The perfect place to disappear.
Stone of FireJerusalem
Where the ARKANE hunt for the Pentecost stones begins.
One Day in BudapestBudapest
A relic stolen, a city on the edge, one day to stop it.
One Day in New YorkNew York
ARKANE beneath the streets of Manhattan.
Browse every book, A to Z
All the novels, novellas, short stories and collections in one library, with each book's world, research and buy links one click away.
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