Francis FG Cottam Books in Order
Explore all Francis FG Cottam books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where to start across his eerie ghost stories and thrillers.
Last updated: July 5, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
The Fire Fighter
by Francis FG Cottam
2001
During the Blitz, Jack Finlay is pulled back to London because no one handles fire like he does. Tasked with protecting five mysterious buildings, he is drawn into wartime secrets, danger, and a city burning all around him.
Hamer's War
by Francis FG Cottam
2003
Wounded on the Russian front, German officer Martin Hamer is reassigned to a labour camp in occupied Poland. There he falls in love with a prisoner, and the war he thought he understood becomes a personal moral trap.
Slapton Sands
by Francis FG Cottam
2005
In 1976, American student Alice Bourne travels to Devon to investigate a disastrous wartime rehearsal at Slapton Sands. The closer she gets to the truth, the more it seems someone, or something, wants the past left buried.
A Shadow On The Sun
by Francis FG Cottam
2006
Polish exile Julia Smollen has built a new life in California with her daughter, Natasha, and a carefully buried past. But Natasha's true parentage, and an old enemy's return, threaten to undo the peace Julia fought for.
The House of Lost Souls
by Francis FG Cottam
2007
A ruined house in the south of England hides the aftermath of an old occult crime. When Sarah Mason returns from it broken and haunted, two men set out to uncover the truth before the place claims more lives.
Dark Echo
by Francis FG Cottam
2008
Businessman Magnus Stannard buys a beautiful old yacht with a long trail of misery behind it. Once he and his son set sail, the boat's sinister history begins steering them toward a purpose that was never theirs.
The Magdalena Curse
by Francis FG Cottam
2010
When young Adam Hunter begins speaking with the voices of the dead, his father knows an old curse has come due. Dr Elizabeth Bancroft joins a desperate hunt that reaches back to a deadly military mission in South America.
The Waiting Room
by Francis FG Cottam
2010
A derelict railway waiting room on Martin Stride's estate becomes the center of a violent haunting that threatens his family. When celebrity ghost hunter Julian Creed arrives expecting easy fakery, he finds something horribly real instead.
Brodmaw Bay
by Francis FG Cottam
2011
After his son is brutally attacked in London, James Greer moves his family to the seemingly perfect Cornish village of Brodmaw Bay. The welcome is warm, the setting is beautiful, and something ancient seems to have been waiting for them.
The Resident
by Francis FG Cottam
2011
Recently separated doctor Juliet Devereau thinks she has found a fresh start in a beautiful New York apartment. Then the noises, the missing moments, and the landlord's attention begin to suggest that someone is far closer than she imagined.
The Colony
by Francis FG Cottam
2012
A media magnate funds an expedition to a remote Hebridean island where an entire colony vanished more than a century earlier. The team expects answers, but New Hope Island has a history of swallowing the people who come too close.
The Memory of Trees
by Francis FG Cottam
2013
Arborist Tom Curtis takes a lucrative job replanting a Welsh estate with the trees that once grew there centuries ago. As the landscape changes, old forces stir, and the project begins to feel less like conservation than an invitation.
The Lazarus Prophecy
by Francis FG Cottam
2014
A killer is stalking women across London and leaving behind blood-written religious clues that defy ordinary police work. Detective Jane Sullivan and theologian Jacob Prior uncover a trail that leads from modern murder to an ancient secret order.
The Summoning
by Francis FG Cottam
2014
During an archaeological dig in a Scottish forest, student Adam Parker uncovers a sinister metal artefact. The find pulls him toward a hidden world of black magic and an enemy who has been waiting a very long time.
Dark Resurrection
by Francis FG Cottam
2015
Five years after the first New Hope disaster, a writers' retreat to the island ends in another disappearance. Ruthie Gillespie, who backed out at the last minute, is pulled into the investigation and into the island's returning darkness.
Harvest of Scorn
by Francis FG Cottam
2017
Felix Baxter plans to turn New Hope Island into an exclusive destination, but the island's buried evil has other ideas. As people disappear and old survivors are drawn back, the final reckoning with the haunting moves closer.
The Lucifer Chord
by Francis FG Cottam
2018
Writer Ruthie Gillespie is hired to separate myth from fact in the life of vanished rock legend Martin Mear. Her research leads to occult rumors, fan obsession, and a derelict mansion where the past may not be finished.
The Auguries
by Francis FG Cottam
2019
A forbidden occult book falls into the hands of a clever, dangerous girl, and London starts to unravel in impossible ways. Professor Juliet Harrington races to stop the chain of omens before it becomes outright catastrophe.
Where should I start?
If you want classic Cottam ghost stories: The House of Lost Souls → Dark Echo → The Waiting Room
If you want the island trilogy: The Colony → Dark Resurrection → Harvest of Scorn
If you prefer occult thrillers on a bigger scale: The Lazarus Prophecy → The Lucifer Chord → The Auguries
If you want the historical novels first: The Fire Fighter → Hamer's War → A Shadow On The Sun
Author bio
Francis FG Cottam was born and brought up in Southport, Lancashire. He studied history at the University of Kent at Canterbury before moving into journalism in London.
That history background runs right through his fiction. Even when he is writing ghost stories or occult thrillers, the past is never just scenery. It presses on the present, sometimes quietly, sometimes with real menace.
He has said that university was where he first started thinking seriously about fiction. Before novels, though, he built a long career in magazines. Early work for i-D, Arena, and The Face helped him into mainstream publishing, and in the 1990s he became a notable magazine editor, launch-editing FHM, creating Total Sport, and launching the UK edition of Men's Health.
Sooner or later, fiction won.
Cottam has explained that he reached a point where, if he did not try to write novels, it was never going to happen. His debut, The Fire Fighter, took readers into Blitz-era London and was later shortlisted for the W.H. Smith Literature Award. He followed it with historical novels including Hamer's War, Slapton Sands, and A Shadow On The Sun, books that deal with war, loyalty, pressure, and the stubborn afterlife of the past.
As F.G. Cottam, he became especially associated with supernatural fiction. Books such as The House of Lost Souls, Dark Echo, The Waiting Room, Brodmaw Bay, The Colony, and The Lazarus Prophecy show what readers often come to him for: eerie settings, buried wrongdoing, and ordinary people trying to stay rational when the world stops behaving rationally. His horror is rarely about gore. It is more about atmosphere, mounting dread, and the sense that history has left something unfinished.
Readers who start with The House of Lost Souls or Dark Echo usually stay for the slow burn. The Waiting Room turns a derelict railway building into a nightmare. The New Hope Island books show that he can widen the canvas without losing the intimate fear that makes his best scenes work.
He writes horror, but he also writes investigation. Again and again, somebody has to look into an old document, a half-buried scandal, a strange house, or a story sensible people would rather dismiss. That gives the books their forward pull.
Place matters in his books.
He likes lonely islands, decaying houses, railway relics, seaside towns, and city streets where modern life suddenly feels thin. Researchers, writers, police officers, priests, and damaged families turn up again and again in his work. So do questions about guilt, belief, inheritance, and what the living owe the dead.
Away from the page, he has been based in Kingston upon Thames and is a father of two. He has said that many of his stories were thought up on runs along the towpath between Kingston and Hampton Court Bridges, which feels exactly right for a writer so interested in weather, memory, and movement. Whether he publishes as Francis Cottam or F.G. Cottam, his books tend to meet in the same place, where the past refuses to stay past.
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