The Gorgon Flower

Shortlisted, 2024 Queensland Literary Awards - Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection '[The Gorgon Flower] reads like a love child of Heart of Darkness and The Day of the Triffids ... Richards has produced a strange, suspenseful selection of well-turned tales, twisting fantasy and horror into a compelling hall of mirrors.' The Age 'With beautifully descriptive and tension-building prose, this is a great collection for folks who like their creepy stories clever and atmospheric.' Books+Publishing 'For readers who hanker for stories reminiscent of Charles Dickens or Arthur Conan Doyle and enjoy the gothic-infused ghost stories of Susan Hill, these stories will intrigue and delight with their wide range and unexpected plot twists.' InReview

A young woman is haunted by the disappearance of her grandmother, a brilliant mathematician whose research uncovered the basis for parallel universes. A botanist travels across the seas in search of an elusive, deadly flower that was also his late father's obsession. A talented painter produces his best work - unsettling masterpieces with strange, fantastical elements - years after he was last seen in person.

In this gothic-inspired collection of stories, John Richards pushes the limits of what short fiction can be. With settings that range from rural France to medieval Italy to nineteenth-century Borneo, The Gorgon Flower is an impressively crafted, engrossing debut by a bold new writer.