Other authors · Other genres
Crime fiction is where I write. It is not the boundary of where I read.
Every genre has something to teach us. Fantasy can make an impossible world feel true. Historical fiction can give the past breath and consequence. Horror understands atmosphere. Science fiction tests the systems we are building. Literary fiction reminds us that the smallest human moment can carry enormous weight.
01 / A dedication
Some authors influence the work directly. Others do something equally important: they keep reading surprising. They take us into lives, places and ideas we would never have reached alone.
This is a growing dedication to those writers. It is a place for established names, independent authors, unexpected discoveries and books from beyond the crime shelf that deserve another reader.
Writing may happen alone, but literature has always been a conversation between imaginations.
02 / The wider shelf
The directory will remain selective and personal. Names and links will be added as the shelf grows.
Stories that create convincing worlds, test their rules and ask what happens when power changes hands.
Writing that turns research into lived experience and makes another period feel immediate.
Books that understand atmosphere, isolation and the fear created by what remains unseen.
Stories that place human choices inside larger questions about technology, society and control.
Writing driven by character, observation and emotional truth.
Writers taking creative risks, finding their readers and building careers outside traditional boundaries.
03 / Author features
Independent voices working in very different genres, each building a distinctive world and finding readers on their own terms.
Speculative fiction · Fantasy
Featured book: A Peculiar Patron
C. R. Walker is a speculative-fiction writer and the creator of The Feline Machine, writing imaginative stories shaped by fantasy, flawed heroes and unusual worlds.
The work combines humour, imagination and human imperfection, favouring characters who are resourceful without being invincible and worlds shaped by choices rather than simple destinies.
Visit The Feline Machine
Dark romance · Contemporary fiction
Featured book: Midnight
Rob Davis is a Northamptonshire-based writer and the voice behind The Plain and Simple Guy, a blog begun in 2021 as an outlet for personal observations, humour and honest reflections on everyday life.
Midnight, his debut novel, moves into darker and more intimate territory: an emotionally charged romance built around obsession, power, vulnerability and two characters unwilling to surrender control. Davis describes the book as the beginning of a wider series.
Visit The Plain and Simple GuyThe crime shelf
For the crime, thriller and screen influences that helped shape the atmosphere, investigative pressure and cinematic movement of the Sam Rourke series, visit the dedicated influences page.
Explore the influences