"I was searching for The Dark Return of Time on the 'net. It's odd, but there isn't a copy for sale anywhere, and it doesn't turn up on the British Library catalogue, the Library of Congress website, or the Biblioteque Nationale." — The Dark Return of Time The past doesn’t always stay where it should. It is as though somebody, or something, is forever trying to bring it painfully into the present. Flavian Bennett is trying to leave his past behind when he goes to work in his father’s bookshop in Paris. But a curious customer, Reginald Hopper, is desperate to resurrect his own murky origins. Hopper believes that a rare and mysterious book, The Dark Return of Time, may be the key to what happened before he arrived in Paris. In this quiet thriller by R.B. Russell, the futures — and pasts — of these two men will soon cross. R.B. Russell is an English author, born in Sussex, and the co-proprietor of the independent publishing house Tartarus Press, which he runs with his partner Rosalie Parker. He has had three collections of his own short stories published, Putting the Pieces in Place (2009), Literary Remains (2010) and Leave Your Sleep (2012); a novella, Bloody Baudelaire (2009), and a collected edition, Ghosts (2012). He is also, occasionally, an illustrator and songwriter, and enjoys making videos.

In this collection love and loss tear at the fabric of everyday life and distort reality. What was once objectively familiar is tainted by uncertainty, and soon everything becomes subtly and terrifyingly altered. In "Loup-garou" a young man watches his own past re-enacted as an avante garde French film. In "Llanfihangel" memories of the past are shown to be incorrect and misinterpreted. In Russell's stories even the present appears to be open to misunderstanding. When those around you insist that they see they world differently at least you can argue with them. But when you realise that you cannot rely on your own senses then the world becomes a terrifying place indeed **