Dark Shadows – Haunting Memories features four new stories read by members of the original cast – with Angelique herself, Lara Parker, writing for Big Finish for the first time.

The stories will feature subtle use of music and sound design, and a trailer can be heard on the story page or below:

Hell Wind written by long-time Dark Shadows fan Marcy Robin and performed by Kathryn Leigh Scott sees a young Josette DuPres caught up in a deadly hurricane. “I’m drawn to stories with detailed descriptions and emotions that enhance characters, settings and situations to create a complete world the reader can dive into,” says Robin. “Dark Shadows has lots to offer: human and beyond-just-human characters, family secrets, hidden yearnings, tragic love, time travel, supernatural elements and plenty more.  I also like expanding beyond: What happened before, after, or to someone else, “what if?”, “missing scenes,” or “fill in the cracks.”  The intriguing audio dramas certainly do all those very well! Hell Wind set during an actual event, is about the duPres family on Martinique.  It explores a key first meeting that sets the stage for a lifelong relationship filled with twists and turns.  In writing numerous stories and poems set in the 1795-96 flashback, I researched and also traveled to Martinique.  There I stayed at a restored sugar plantation, visited the 1763 birthplace of  Marie-Josephe-Rose Tascher de La Pagerie – better known as Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife Empress Josephine – and talked with an expert on 1700s local life styles and history.  I hope what I saw, heard and felt there help make this story come alive for the listeners.”

Communion, written by Adam Usden and performed by Jerry Lacy, features the first ever appearance of Elias Trask.

“After penning The Happier Dead a couple of years ago, I leapt at the chance to contribute another story in the Dark Shadows legacy, especially in such a momentous year,” says Usden. “And being able to write a brand new Trask for Jerry Lacy to sink his teeth into was a real treat. Elias was so much fun to write, and adopting the style of his unfiltered thoughts gave me such an intimate and blackly comic form to work with. Like his grandfather and his son, Elias is an utterly deluded religious hypocrite, who, like all the best liars, is most accomplished at deceiving himself. Although as for what happens to him, I’m not sure anybody deserves that…"

The Ghost Ship, written and performed by Dark Shadows star Lara Parker, tells the story of the witch Angelique meeting the Widows of Widow’s Hill. “I was delighted to be asked to submit a story to Big Finish based on the character I played on Dark Shadows, the witch Angelique, and to record it as well,” says Parker. “I hope you enjoy it.”

The final story in the collection features Marie Wallace telling the story of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard meeting a man who looks remarkably similar to the long-lost love of her life. A Face From the Past is written by Kay Stonham, a writer new to Big Finish but certainly not new to writing for radio.

"This is my first Dark Shadows story, and I found writing it both a joy and a challenge.  Although a very experienced radio writer I have not written an audio piece for one voice before and found the opportunity to explore secret backstory and internal emotion this affords very exciting.  The story itself is based on my experience of seeing a familiar but long lost face in a dream.  The conflicting feelings of exhilaration, grief and loss I experienced when I woke left a profound effect on me, and it is these feelings that weave so perfectly into Elizabeth's moving backstory.  The wistful atmosphere of this story stayed with me for days after writing it, I hope it will stay with the listeners too!"

Dark Shadows: Haunting Memories is available to pre-order now and will be released in December, 2016. Check out our Dark Shadows ranges here, including value-for-money bundles collecting together some of the titles!