Welcome to the asylum!

Shaun Allan is a bestselling author, Wattpad Star and Creator, featured author and Wattys winner. He has appeared on Sky TV to debate traditional vs electronic publishing against a major literary agent, and writes multiple genres, including young adult and children’s, though mainly delves into his Dark Half to produce psychological horror. He has worked with Warner Brothers, Universal and Blumhouse on stories to accompany top horror movies, plus DC Comics and Goosebumps. Shaun also regularly holds writing workshops at local schools. Many of his personal experiences and memories are woven into the point of view and sense of humour of Sin, the main character in his #1 best-selling novel of the same name (now an interactive game on Chapters!), and his myriad other stories.

Shaun lives with his manic dogs, Ripley (believe it or not) and Lissi. He works full time and, though his life feels as manic as his dog, it probably isn't.

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Black Thickett
The new book!

Grief is a ghost that only time can exorcise. But some wounds run too deep for even time to heal.

Edmund comes to the remote village of Black Thickett to escape the life that grief has carved out of him. He wants silence. Distance. A place where memories can’t follow.

But Black Thickett is wrong in quiet, unsettling ways.

The broken road becomes perfectly smooth the moment he crosses the boundary. The cottages are too neat, too deliberate. And on a noticeboard full of dry flyers, only one poster is wet - a missing boy, smiling as if he doesn’t know he’s lost.

The villagers won’t talk about the disappearances. Instead, they whisper warnings about the dark treeline looming over the square.

The forest at the edge of the village seems to breathe, and the deeper Edmund goes, the calmer he feels… dangerously so. The woods can quiet his pain. It can ease his grief. It can make him forget the agony of his past.

But the peace of the forest comes with a terrible price. Not everything that heals you wants you to survive.

Welcome to Black Thickett. Once the forest notices you, it never lets go.

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“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”

Stephen King