Keep the Lamp Burning

By lee Angus

Keep the Lamp Burning

In 2125, on the night a meteor swarm ends the world in fire, twelve-year-old Alfie Harrison and his family flee into the abandoned Dean & Chapter Colliery in County Durham-the only refuge left. Guided by his granda Jack, a lifelong miner who still carries the dust of 1966 in his boots, they descend into darkness as the sky burns above.

What begins as desperate survival becomes something mythic. Starvation, horrors from the poisoned surface, and the mine's ancient hunger force impossible choices. Three children-Alfie, Thomas Knox from 1642, and young Lily-pay the ultimate price, becoming a living seam of singing coal that slowly transforms the dark into mercy.

Over two centuries, the mine becomes a hidden country: gardens grown from memory and bone-dust, endless feasts at the Long Table, a Forest of Names where grief becomes living wood, ponies reborn, and light that pours down the shafts like forgiveness made visible. Wanderers drawn by impossible wheat circles find a world rebuilt on stubborn love, working-class grit, and the refusal to let darkness win.

At its heart is a fierce, patient romance between Clodagh O'Connor and Davie Armstrong-two ordinary people who outlast apocalypse, silence, and time itself, proving that love, Northeast and ridiculous, is the only force stronger than the end of everything.

Keep the Lamp Burning is a post-apocalyptic epic of sacrifice and redemption, rooted in British mining folklore. From visceral early horror to hard-earned, radiant hope, it is a story about family, honour, and keeping faith when the sky falls-until the dawn finally stays.

A standalone novel of darkness, mercy, and unbreakable light.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GB9CNS4C
• ISBN13: 9798279218356
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"