The Quantum Toybox is a child of many influences. I grew up on Spielberg, The X Files and Stephen King, with a good dose of star-gazing thrown in on crisp winter nights. Add an overactive imagination plus the fact our yard bordered on a sprawling apple orchard, and you’ve got fertile ground for a tale about family, childhood and Lovecraftian terror...with a twist.

I’ve never come across a horror novel set in my native Northern Ireland, let alone in the sleepy, orchard-strewn countryside near Loughall. The Quantum Toybox begins as a murder mystery that quickly descends into a bizarre and horrifying ordeal for the residents of a small rural community.