A great-grandmother from Preston is enjoying new-found success as an author after publishing her debut collection of spooky short stories.

Stella Worden’s book, Strange Stories of Frightful Forebodings and Phantoms, became the number one title in the Amazon Kindle Store’s “unexplained mysteries” chart.

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70-year-old Stella, who has nine great-grandchildren, said: “The feedback I received from those who’ve read the book has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I write when I’m in the mood by just scribbling things down when I have a moment and that often leads to bigger and better things.

“I’ve written a lot of stories on and off throughout the years and last year it occurred to me, after attending an authors’ writing group, that I’d better get cracking if I wanted to do anything with them.”

Strange Stories of Frightful Forebodings and Phantoms is a collection of 25 short stories set in locations from Preston to Egypt, and everywhere in between.

Read more: Book set in Preston’s haunted tunnels up for global literature award

The stories feature ghosts, gifted predictors, a monster, a witch and the devil. However Stella, who is part of Preston writing group ScRibble, believes the appeal of the book is in the realism of her central characters.

She said: “The main characters of the stories are all just ordinary people going about their normal daily lives. 

“You could describe Strange Stories of Frightful Forebodings and Phantoms as magic realism for adults.

“I didn’t set out with a plan, it was more a case of the short stories coming together and the wanting to put them into book form part just sort of grew on me.”

Read more: A children’s author from Longton has published his first book

Stella spent her working life in retail and office administration. Prior to writing Strange Stories of Frightful Forebodings and Phantoms she graduated in Ceramics from the University of Central Lancashire.

Although Stella has no plans at present to publish a second title, she has continued to write.

To find out more and purchase the book in paperback or Kindle format, visit Amazon and search for Stella Worden.

What do you think of Stella’s new-found success? Will you be buying the book? Let us know in the comments below.