"The Landlady... Plus-2" brings us three female-led fantasies of empowered women and the men placed by them in situations of horror, service, and interracial supremacy from which they struggle to escape before finding they no longer wish to even try.
Read on, as a writer and bachelor, fascinated with Bram Stoker's "Dracula", takes rooms in Whitby to work on a sequel to the story and finds his huge Friesian landlady is also a fan... And a fan with an entirely different and altogether more long-term take on the power-dynamics within that famous and enduring tale of vampiric horror.
A man finds his life in freefall after being released from prison for corporate fraud. Alone, friendless, and at the mercy of the welfare-state, he is told of a situation vacant perfect for his temporary needs... A situation - and the "Live-In" position it offers - about to take his life in an entirely different and more final direction!
A chancer, in debt to a vengeful London mobster whose wife he has bedded, finds it necessary to lose himself with the help of fake ID and lands on the Suffolk coast. A location, along with his decision to accept a position in the home of an African widow, which will alter his life far more than the mobster himself ever could... And for a far greater duration!
Inside you will find:
"The Landlady" by Gillian Ormendroyd; "A Most Strange Position" from Hillary Marshall; and "The White Serf" by Connor Parnell.
An outrageous but believable mix of three tales, combining elements of horror, service, and interracial friction, and written from a psychological and female-led perspective for those readers with a preference for exercising the darker side of the imagination with the help of credible and character-driven plotlines.
