June 12, 2025
The Doctor and Ruby meet horror author Shirley Jackson in a new adventure in the Icons Series from Puffin Books.
The Icons Series of novels from Puffin Books brings the Doctor and their companions face-to-face with some of history's most notable people. The latest release in this series, Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box, sees the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday seek help from the legendary horror writer.
When a strange signal echoes through time to the heart of the TARDIS, the Doctor follows it to the home of Shirley Jackson. But the strangeness deepens when they find a sinister figure sowing chaos and discord with the use of a glowing box – encouraging a crowd to murderous deeds. Catapulted back to Shirley Jackson’s own era by the TARDIS, the Doctor (with the help of the time-struck author) must discover the origins of the box, and the terrible power that it wields...
Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box is available now in paperback and ebook. Get your copy here.
Read an exclusive excerpt from the new novel below...
Ruby stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around. ‘You sure this is it?’ she asked, a little confused. The TARDIS had landed gracefully in a small clearing, nestled in the dappled shade of a towering bell tower that rose high into the sky. Its stone façade had weathered over the years and the clock face glinted in the afternoon sunlight, its hands moving steadily, a reminder of the passage of time amid the hustle and bustle of university life. Surrounding the green space were stately maple trees, their leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze. They were already transforming into a vibrant tapestry of reds and oranges, creating a breathtaking canopy overhead.
The air was alive with the sounds of campus life – laughter, the faint rustle of pages being turned, and the distant hum of conversation. Groups of students milled about in the clearing, some carrying stacks of books piled precariously in their arms, their faces a mix of concentration and camaraderie. A few stopped to chat, their voices animated as they exchanged ideas or discussed their latest assignments. No one paid much attention to the TARDIS or its occupants as they stood before it. ‘Syracuse University, 1937,’ the Doctor said. ‘Right time, right place. Now we need to find the right person.’ ‘You think she’ll be easy to spot?’ Ruby asked. ‘Shirley enjoyed her time here, but she always felt a little out of place,’ the Doctor said. ‘She had all these big ideas in a time, this time, when women with big ideas were seen as a threat.’ Ruby huffed. ‘We still have some work to do in that arena, don’t we?’ ‘We do,’ said the Doctor. ‘I still can’t believe we’re in 1937,’ Ruby said. The Doctor smiled warmly at Ruby. ‘Best advice is to take things as they come.’ He gave Ruby a little nod of his head and then spun round. ‘Right. Now we need to find Shirley and see what she knows. We’re eleven years off from when “The Lottery” will be published.’ The Doctor scanned the surrounding area. ‘There,’ he said, gesturing, his eyes growing wide. ‘I think I see her.’ ‘Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?’ Ruby said. The Doctor stared across the green space. Ruby wasn’t used to seeing him hesitate.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Are you... starstruck?’ ‘No,’ the Doctor said, straightening out his coat and letting his gaze trail to the ground. ‘Oh, you’ve got a terrible poker face,’ Ruby said. The Doctor sighed. ‘Can’t keep anything from you, can I?’ He laughed a little. ‘She’s just sitting right there. I can’t believe it. Look at her.’ Under an expertly trimmed maple, whose leaves were already turning in the early autumn air, a young woman sat alone. Her short brown hair, frizzy and a little unkempt, was tucked behind her ears. She sat on a blanket with her legs crossed, scribbling madly in a notebook. ‘Well,’ Ruby said. ‘What are we waiting for?’ The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘Right. Let’s go.’ Shirley didn’t even look up as the Doctor and Ruby approached her. ‘Hiya!’ the Doctor said excitedly. ‘Are you Shirley Jackson?’ The young woman stopped writing and protectively closed the notebook in her lap. She still didn’t look up. ‘Who is asking?’ she asked, her eyes downcast. The Doctor hesitated for a moment and then sat down next to the author and pulled a reluctant Ruby down beside him. ‘We’re fans of your work, Shirley.’ The Doctor could hardly contain his excitement. Shirley scooted back and pressed herself into the trunk of the maple tree like she wanted to disappear. ‘My work?’ she asked.
The Doctor formed his lips into a tight line. They were early, after all. Shirley wouldn’t write any of her best-known works for years. ‘We’re fans of what your work will become,’ the Doctor corrected. ‘And how do you know what my work will become?’ Shirley asked, finally looking up. Her big dark eyes were wide and unblinking behind her wire-framed glasses. She looked from the Doctor to Ruby and back again. ‘Quite unusual, the two of you,’ Shirley said shyly. ‘Very, very unusual.’ Ruby looked down at herself. She was wearing a tartan patterned skirt, black tights and a high-necked black sweater under a faux-fur-trimmed coat. She glanced at the Doctor, whose outfit consisted of a brown double-breasted trench coat, black pleated trousers, a black jumper and bright trainers. There was no hiding that the two of them were out of place, out of time, but Shirley didn’t seem frightened, only curious. ‘We’re ahead of the curve,’ the Doctor said. ‘How far ahead?’ Shirley asked, a tiny smirk colouring her expression. ‘A good long way,’ the Doctor replied. Shirley seemed to still herself, as if she were trying to piece something together in her mind. ‘I read a children’s novel that told of a little boy who travelled to the past in a magical box,’ Shirley said softly. ‘He was an adventurer and saw all kinds of amazing things.’ ‘Not unlike us,’ the Doctor said, glancing back at the TARDIS.
‘But that was fiction,’ Shirley said. ‘The work of John Masefield’s imagination.’ The Doctor leaned towards Shirley. ‘Isn’t everything in our reality a work of imagination? Someone had to imagine the telephone, the light bulb, the record player, before they came into being. You know what that’s like, don’t you, Shirley? To imagine a thing and make it real on the page.’ ‘My imagination has always managed to get the better of me,’ she said. ‘But, yes. I know what that’s like.’ ‘Then I’m sure you can imagine who we are,’ the Doctor said. ‘Adventurers,’ Shirley said, her gaze brightening. She sat up straight and leaned closer to both Ruby and the Doctor, as if she were examining them. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ ‘And what d’you know about adventurers?’ asked the Doctor. Something passed between Shirley and the Doctor at that moment, some sort of shared understanding. Shirley grasped her notebook and pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. ‘I know very little of adventurers,’ Shirley said. ‘But I’ve often wondered if they might exist. And other things...’ She trailed off. ‘Well, like you said, I’ve imagined all sorts of other things.’ ‘You’ve been writing,’ Ruby said. ‘I have,’ Shirley replied. ‘I’ve had a flood of ideas lately, but I cannot decide if I want to write fiction or nonfiction.’ ‘Why not a bit of both?’ the Doctor suggested. Shirley hesitated for a moment. She ran her fingers over the cover of her notebook. ‘I did have one idea.’
Ruby leaned closer to Shirley. ‘You don’t have to share it if you’re not comfortable.’ Shirley sighed. ‘I so rarely let anyone look at my works in progress.’ ‘You’re afraid of what people might think?’ Ruby asked. Shirley shrugged. ‘Maybe a little.’ ‘I could never judge you,’ the Doctor said, smiling gently. Shirley smiled back. She turned her notebook over in her hands and set it down on the blanket in front of her, before opening it and thumbing through the pages. When she found what she was looking for, she tilted the notebook up and displayed it for Ruby and the Doctor. There, sketched in pencil, was a drawing of a box. ‘It’s the drawing from the display case,’ Ruby whispered. ‘The what?’ Shirley asked. ‘Nothing,’ Ruby said, flustered. But it was the same sketch. Not a similar one. The same one. ‘Is this something you’ve seen with your own eyes?’ the Doctor asked. Shirley glanced around nervously, before gathering up her things and climbing to her feet. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to get to class.’ The Doctor was suddenly on his feet, pulling Ruby up alongside him. ‘Please, Shirley,’ the Doctor said. ‘We have more questions about that box.’ Shirley clutched her notebook to her chest. ‘And I have more answers and maybe some questions of my own for the two of you. But not here, not now.’ Shirley picked up the blanket and shook it out, tossing it into the crook of her arm. ‘Meet me under the clock tower at midnight.’ The Doctor nodded and Shirley took off at a brisk pace, disappearing into the increasingly crowded green space. Ruby and the Doctor stood under the clock tower as the bell chimed midnight. The sound reverberated downwards and washed over the now-empty courtyard. ‘You really think she’ll answer our questions about that box?’ Ruby asked. The Doctor looked thoughtful. ‘I hope so. Otherwise, we’ve wasted a perfectly good holiday.’ ‘That’s what you call this?’ Ruby asked. ‘A holiday? Aren’t holidays supposed to be somewhere warm? With a beach view?’ ‘Beaches are overrated,’ the Doctor said. ‘Why go to the beach when you can go to the stars?’ ‘This is what we do,’ Ruby said. ‘Travel around the stars in the TARDIS... investigating strange goings-on, and here I am, right in the middle of it with you.’ The Doctor threw his head back and laughed. ‘Everything’s strange, yeah? Everywhere I go something needs sorting out. It’s endless, but the thing that makes it all okay is you, Ruby Sunday: my companion on this strange and wonderful journey.’ Ruby leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ From a narrow passageway at the base of the clock tower, a shuffling sound drew the Doctor’s attention. He stepped protectively in front of Ruby as a figure emerged.
‘Didn’t mean to frighten you,’ Shirley said. She was dressed in a pair of slacks and a heavy wool sweater, her hair pulled into a small bun at the base of her neck. The Doctor grinned. ‘I’m glad you came.’ Shirley approached Ruby and the Doctor with some hesitancy. Ruby smiled at her warmly. ‘You wanted to ask me questions about my drawing,’ Shirley said. ‘Yes,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I can do that, but I have a question for you first,’ Shirley said. ‘And I don’t care how strange it sounds; you must answer it.’ ‘Ruby and I were just speaking of strange things,’ the Doctor said. ‘Ask away.’ Shirley squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘You’re not from here,’ she said. ‘What I mean is that you’re not from now, this time. Is that right?’ The Doctor hesitated. ‘Is that the question you need answered?’ Shirley nodded. The Doctor stepped closer to her and looked her in the eyes. ‘And if I say yes, what then?’ ‘Nothing,’ Shirley said. ‘I’ve always thought it was possible for people like you to exist. I – I had hoped...’ Shirley trailed off. ‘What did you hope?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I hoped there was another place, another time, where I could be more fully myself,’ Shirley said. ‘Do you know what it’s like to feel as if you don’t belong?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘I understand. Maybe better than anyone.’ ‘Because what does belonging look like to a Time Lord?’ Ruby added. ‘My home is gone,’ the Doctor said. ‘I have to find where I belong with the people I love and care about.’ He reached for Ruby’s hand and she took it. ‘I don’t need any further convincing, Doctor,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m going to take you at your word. I’ve imagined stranger things. I think I may have even seen stranger things. It’s the price of my condition.’ ‘Condition?’ Ruby asked. ‘My mind,’ Shirley began. She gently rested her fingers on her exposed temple. ‘Thoughts run through it like a river. Every day, a new stream of what-ifs joins the rapids. It is too much to hold inside of my own head, so I write it down.’ ‘Is that what happened with the box?’ the Doctor asked. Shirley nodded. ‘We are in Syracuse now, but just outside the city, there’s a hamlet called Delphi Falls. I took a bus there and spent a week writing in a little cabin at the edge of the forest. One night, I was lying in bed when I heard a sound. It was a rustling, like a crowd of people were treading the path together. When I looked out the window, I saw torchlight and a trail of people moving into the treeline.’ ‘In the middle of the night?’ Ruby asked. ‘In the very dead of night,’ Shirley replied. ‘My curiosity got the better of me, so I slipped on my shoes and went to follow them, trailing them at a distance so I wouldn’t be seen. I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, but I stepped on fallen branches and dried leaves, and I feared on more than one occasion that they would hear me.’ Shirley took a big breath and let the air hiss out from between her teeth. ‘I hid in a tangle of bracken as the people came to a stop in a small clearing. They gathered around something that glowed so brightly it lit up the surrounding trees. I had to position myself with one knee in the dirt to get a good look at it.’ Shirley reached into her back pocket and pulled out her little notebook. She turned to the page with the box and showed Ruby and the Doctor. ‘This is what I saw. I sketched this the moment I got back to my cabin.’ She let out a laugh. ‘I didn’t sleep a wink that night, and I left as soon as the sun came up the next morning. That was last fall, and I’ve been unable to get it out of my mind since.’ ‘Can you take us there?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Can you take us to the exact spot where you saw the box?’ ‘I can,’ Shirley said. ‘But why? What does it matter to you?’ The Doctor reached out and traced his fingers over the sketch in Shirley’s notebook.
‘If I told you that one day your work will inspire people and that one story in particular will hold the fascination of the entire literary world, could you believe it?’ Shirley’s mouth opened into a little ‘o’. ‘No. I – I don’t think I could.’ The Doctor gently took her hand. ‘Adventurers, remember?’ ‘Adventurers,’ Shirley repeated. ‘Something is happening in another time,’ the Doctor said. ‘In a place that you’ll come to know, but I think it all leads back to here, right here, with you. In this time and with this drawing. I need to know what this is and where it came from.’ Shirley closed her notebook and slipped it back into her pocket. ‘I’ll take you to Delphi Falls,’ she said. ‘But we’ll need a car.’ ‘I’ve got something better,’ the Doctor said.
Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box is available now in paperback and ebook. Get your copy here.
