Tag: Horror

Posted in Personal Purchase

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“When the house was complete, in February of 1870, Eleanor Starling took up residence and stayed there until her death in 1886. There is substantial evidence that she devoted the remaining years of her life to the study of the place she later called “Underland.” She believed, according to the notes and journals found by her successors, that there was another world beneath, or maybe beside, our own—a terrible, vicious world, populated by monstrous beings. She believed that there were cracks between that world and our own, places where things might leak through, and that one of these rifts lay underneath Eden, Kentucky.”

Starling House sits on Starling land and can’t be fully seen from the roadside, except for a pair of iron gates that are so intricate and sinuous it wouldn’t be a surprise if they started to move and become a living, writhing being. Opal passes the house daily as she takes a short cut from one of her jobs to another and she’s intrigued by the house, especially the one amber lit window, high up in the attic room. There she imagines Eleanor Starling, living the solitary life of an author trying to follow up their first extraordinary book. Opal loved Eleanor’s children’s book Underland described as a much darker Alice in Wonderland where a girl called Nell is under the ground with a weird array of beasts (all of which look like a member of the animal kingdom, but at the same time not at all). Opal’s life is a gruelling slog from the motel room she shares with brother Jasper, to her cleaning jobs then back to supervise homework and share their measly evening meal. It only takes one small difference in their routine to shake everything up and bring huge change to their lives. Opal pauses her route home and stops at the iron gates of Starling House. She holds on to the iron, but immediately finds her hand is slick with blood. More disturbingly, she feels the gates give, almost as if her blood is the key. She looks up to see that a tall, thin and rather bedraggled man has appeared in front of her. He looks her in the eye and says one word. Run!

[The town] “liked the Starlings even less. They’re considered eccentrics and misanthropes, a family of dubious origin that has refused for generations to participate in the most basic elements of Eden’s civil society (church, public school, bake sales for the volunteer fire department), choosing instead to stay holed up in that grand house. […] It’s generally hoped that both they and their house will fall into a sinkhole and rot at the bottom, neither mourned nor remembered, and—perhaps—release the town from its century-long curse.”

Arthur, the bedraggled man, is the current Starling living in the house and it isn’t long before Opal is drawn back into his presence. Arthur seems to be torn. He’s drawn to Opal, but so is the house. It seems unfair to strike up a friendship with her knowing that the house wants her and what that will mean for her life. Yet he asks her if she will clean for him and offers enough money that Opal can’t refuse. He is concerned about this flame haired waif that is now in his midst and he can’t help but offer her a winter coat, then his old truck. Are these genuine gifts, or is Arthur trying to assuage his guilt for doing the house’s bidding? The house almost seems to sigh and settle as Opal cares for it, like a cat stretching with pleasure when stroked. She does wonder about the crude symbols scratched into the wooden doors, that match Arthur’s tattoos. Every conceivable symbol to ward off evil is either scratched, painted or hung around the house. How do you ward off something that strikes from within? Opal is then approached by a woman in a suit, who seems to know a lot about Opal and the Starling House. She wants Opal to take photographs and pass on information from the inside of the house. Firstly she seems like any old local official, but becomes more sinister when Opal is reluctant to help, finally making threats against Jasper. Now she has no choice, but she’s surprised by her own emotions; it’s harder to betray Arthur Starling than she expected. Is it really the house she’s drawn to, or is it Arthur?

“Eleanor Starling left no record of why she built such a vast and strange house, but the oldest and best-loved book in her collection was a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It has been suggested by subsequent Starlings that she was not building a house but a labyrinth, for much the same reason the King of Crete once did: to protect the world from the thing that lived inside it.”

Opal isn’t easily afraid and I knew, just from that opening, she wasn’t done with Starling House. More to the point, the house isn’t done with her. I admired this plucky girl who is only just getting by in life and does everything for her brother Jasper. She desperately wants him to get away from Eden, Kentucky, because he has so much talent but also because nobody with any sense stays in Eden. She is saving for the fees of a private school she has seen, somewhere that would give him prospects and he would meet the right sort of people. She’s so set on this plan, she hasn’t bothered to ask what Jasper wants. Her heart is in the right place though. She doesn’t love many things, but when she does Opal loves like she does everything else – fiercely. Her existence is all work, striving just to survive but Opal is so intelligent, in fact one of the only places in town she visits religiously is the library. The librarian Charlotte is perhaps the closest thing to a friend she has. The truth is that Opal feels enormous guilt over the terrible car accident that killed their mother and what she sees as the decision she made to survive:

“ I’m fifteen and cold water is pouring through the windshield. The glove box is open, spewing pill bottles and plastic utensils. Mom is beside me, her limbs drifting gently, her hair tangling with the tacky dream catcher she pinned to the car roof. I’m reaching for her hand and her fingers are slick and limp as minnows and I might be screaming—Mom, come on, Mom—but the words can’t make it past the river? Then it goes very quiet and very dark. I don’t remember letting go of her hand, but I must have done it. I must have crossed her name off the list in my head and swum for the surface, abandoning her to the river bottom.”

I loved the psychological aspects of the story. The house has an identity and it knows who has the right stuff to live there and keep up the fight. I wondered whether the monsters were real or a manifestation of the occupant’s mental state. The thought of the monsters in our heads being able to run free in the world is definitely a terrifying one. The author builds the two worlds within the novel with contrasting techniques: short, blunt descriptions create Eden with it’s power plant and functional buildings, whereas Starling House and it’s labyrinthine tunnels are given long, descriptive passages that bring it to life. If something in Opal or Eleanor’s world is inexplicable she allows it to be unfinished or confused. Some of the monsters are beautifully described as ‘like a cat, but not quite’ or other strange combination that leaves gaps in the image for the reader to fill with their own imagination. This is an author that knows, the things we can’t see or comprehend are the most frightening.

When we finally get to Eleanor’s life story it is disturbing and sad, showing how unresolved trauma can project outwards into something monstrous. There’s a feminist thread here too in the truth about Eleanor’s life with the Gravely men and Opal recognition that her mother was shunned by the town, not just for liking sex but for not being sorry about it. In a reversal of the usual damsel in distress story, Opal is the architect of her own life and is determined to rid Starling House of it’s monsters and save Arthur. I was biting my nails in the final chapters, desperately wanting her to succeed! I’ve never doubted Alix E. Harrow’s talent or imagination. I’ve been a fan since her first novel, but this is her best yet. I’ve been reading that it’s a reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, and I can see that. However, Underland felt like the very darkest Alice in Wonderland to me. In both cases, all the ‘Disney-fied’ prettiness has been swept away. In it’s place are monsters that defy all description and a love story that’s more swords and thorns than hearts and flowers. It’s an absolute feast for the imagination and the perfect dark fantasy read for October.

Posted in Netgalley

The Haunting in the Arctic by C.J.Cooke

Posted on by thelotusreaders

All I could say after reading the final sentence of the book was WOW! I couldn’t stop reading, the housework is completely neglected and I even forgot to eat lunch! Yes, I read this in 24 hours. This is the absolute best of her novels and I’ve enjoyed them all.

Dominique is making her way through Iceland to an old whaling ship called the Ormen. Stranded in a bay, the ship is going to be sunk out at sea and Dom wants to document it before it disappears from view together. Ormen was an unusual whaling ship being a sail and steam hybrid that became beached in the early days of the 20th Century near the small village of turf houses called Skúmaskot. When she reaches the ship she sets about turning the cabin into a base to explore from and puts up her tent. There’s one door in the ship that she wonders about, it’s made of carved oak and when she touched the handle it emitted such a feeling of evil she was taken aback. As she settles, she hears someone walking about on deck and she realises she’s not alone. Three more explorers join her – Jens, Samara and Leo. They have more up to date equipment and soon the four are documenting the ship and their discoveries as well as Leo’s parkour sessions. The questions start to mount though, is she wrong or are the other three suspicious or even slightly scared of her? What are the strange noises she can hear – banging could be gunfire or chains banging against the ship? There’s also a strange mix of footsteps and dragging something heavy in a steady rhythm. Who is the woman in the dress that she’s seen standing in the shallows? This is a strange place where light is limited, the village is deserted and there is a strange stone throne by the beach, said to be a Mermaid’s Throne. These are not Disney mermaids though, these mermaids have teeth and a song that will lure a man to his death.

There are different types of haunting in this tale. I could see examples of my own theory of hauntings in the woman seen by the edge of the sea. She feels like an imprint on the landscape. A place where heightened emotion and terrible events have left such a strong imprint that defies time. The sounds also seem to come from another place, a repetitive echo from time past. This is what I call a proper ghost story. It isn’t gory or a slasher’s tale, it’s old-fashioned creepy and blended beautifully with local folklore. The ship is from Scotland and this is where the folklore of selkies comes from, a race of seal women who have a dual nature. They can be nurturing and helpful, such as saving a child who’s in trouble in the sea. They can communicate with other aquatic creatures and assume a human form when on land. However, selkies can also be seductive luring men to her and often having hybrid children. At their worst Selkies can be violent and vengeful, but their need for revenge gives us a clue about why; people seeking revenge have usually been wronged in some way. Mermaids are also depicted as sirens, luring ships and men with their singing and often thought to lure ships onto the rocks. However, there is also a terrible element of coercion in their mythology, stories where a man steals an item from the mermaid and while he has that item in his possession she belongs to him and lives as his wife. If she finds the object the spell is broken and she can return to the sea. Of course in the fairy tale we have a mermaid who has to choose between her land and sea lives, she can have love but to have legs she must suffer excruciating pain and she can never use her voice. It’s a hard price to pay. Icelandic mermaids have all these qualities, but use their seductive charms to lure sailors to their deaths – a nice reversal of their capture by human men. The author describes Icelandic mermaids as having rows of pointed teeth too. There’s a sense of devouring their enemies, particularly those who have wronged them. Is this Nicky’s end?

I loved the tension between the group of four on the Ormen. Samara seems fine with Dom, but then she overhears a conversation with Leo where Samara seems terrified of her. She talks about ‘this time’ being different, but Dom can’t remember meeting them before. I loved this mix of psychological tension, the real dangers of the landscape around them and then the truth of what has happened to the previous crew of the ship and previous explorers who’ve also left their echoes here. I sensed a possible kinship between Jens and Dom, almost as if he already knew her. I was scared of Leo. There’s so much nervous energy in him, a rage running just under the surface that I feared might ignite at any point. Yet they’re also dependent on each other for their survival creating what feels like a truce between them, but how can a truce exist if they’ve never met? There are so many strange happenings, such as Dom’s dream of ponies running off a cliff followed by finding the skeletons of Icelandic ponies in a deep cave. I loved the bits of magic realism, such as Nicky’s leg. Everything about the voyage from Scotland is historically accurate and gives us such an incredible sense of place I can see it. However, Nicky’s broken ankle and wound start to heal in an usual way. She notices the grey colour of her newly healing skin and thinks she has an infection. The sensation is altered too, feeling rubbery and a little cold. As time goes on this patch of skin grows and she’s aware that the gap between her legs is becoming webbed. Could her legs be joining together? This could be a magical sort of protection against the assaults she suffers on a daily basis. It could also be a transformation. As the past starts to inform Dominique’s present I couldn’t leave the story and I was left with the worst kind of book hangover where I was stuck in the world and the feeling of the ending. It’s taken me two days to start another book but I can’t stop thinking about this one. In fact I’m already thinking about reading it again, a bit like watching The Sixth Sense again once you know the twist. This is a dark, disturbing ghost story of hauntings but also about the worst things human beings can do to one another, particularly men against women and the extraordinary ways they exact their revenge.

Out in Hardback now from Harper Collins

C J Cooke (Carolyn Jess-Cooke) lives in Glasgow with her husband and four children. C J Cooke’s works have been published in 23 languages and have won many awards. She holds a PhD in Literature from the Queen’s University of Belfast and is currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, where she researches creative writing interventions for mental health. Two of her books are currently optioned for film. Visit http://www.cjcookeauthor.com

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Other People’s Husbands by Elizabeth Noble

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Elizabeth Noble’s domestic drama is focused around a solid group of friends. Six women and their husbands have been a ‘pack’ for several years after chat at the school gates led to lunches, then dinners and now regular get togethers like their annual May Day bank holiday. Traditionally this weekend is always spent together, sometimes abroad but usually at Annie’s picturesque holiday cottage. Annie loves sharing her home with her closest friends and is the best host, often heading down there a couple of days before the others to air the house out and prepare the bedrooms. This is where the ripples begin. In previous years Annie remembers all the kids coming along, playing in the pool and shrieking with laughter. More recently it’s just been the adults and the first day usually involves getting out of travelling clothes and spending the afternoon by the pool, the men in their swimming shorts and the women in sensible Boden one piece swimsuits, an unspoken rule. Kit and Natalie are late for everything and this weekend is no exception, so everyone is already lounging outdoors when Natalie joins them. This is the moment that everything changes, as Natalie strolls out in a high legged red bikini walks the length of the pool and climbs in. The red is as subtle as a matador’s cape, but will anyone take up the challenge? All the women know without speaking that this is a betrayal of the sisterhood, an open sexual invitation, a red flag. Even a couple of the men mention it, later on in bed with their wives they say it was a statement, pure theatre, something that shouldn’t be a surprise considering Natalie is an actress. Yet her husband Kit barely seems to notice.

However, one of the husbands noticed a long time ago that Nat is beautiful. In fact over twenty years there have been several moments – a glance, a brush of the fingers, a hand that lingers on a shoulder, a kiss that strays from the cheek to the edge of the mouth. Will this now become something more? The author lets the tension rise beautifully. She perfectly captures how one action acts like a ripple in a pond within a group like this. It would affect every one of the friends and the next generation who have grown their own friendships over the years. Natalie is feeling restless and expressing that in her clothing and changing her routine. She and husband Kit have a small flat in London that she can pop to on the train and visit galleries or go shopping. Previously she’s been held to the routine of children at home but now she’s free from that and has time for herself. Her husband Kit seems absolutely solid and a great dad, but Natalie misses that frisson of attraction and electricity between two people. So, when she and Dom accidentally bump into each other in London she doesn’t have anywhere to be or to rush back for, so they can enjoy the warmth of a city evening. Joining others who are sat on the embankment, looking at the river and enjoying a bottle of wine or ice cream. The heat between them is obvious, but there’s always been something to stop them before. Dom loves his wife, she’s solid and dependable but their sex life has dwindled of late and they don’t seem to have made the transition back from family to being a couple again. His attraction to Natalie, something he felt at their very first meeting, has never diminished. What if they now have a chance to be together? Whereas Natalie seems to agonise over her husband and children finding out, Dom doesn’t seem to think about the catastrophe this would cause.

Noble has written their characters very carefully so that I really did care about Natalie despite her actions. I enjoyed her relationship with daughter, listening to Temple’s marriage problems and going away with her for the weekend for some quality time. Natalie’s issues were largely her own and they had nothing to do with her relationship with Kit. Dom’s wife Sarah was very organised, something that seemed to fit with her job as a schoolteacher. She often organised group get togethers and was very family orientated. She knew that her sex life with Dom had slipped a bit of late but she wasn’t too worried. She thought that sex did tend to dwindle a little when people reached middle age and had been together so long. That didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. However, she had really been too busy to stop and think about whether they actually did still love each other. The author’s ability to get inside the mind of these characters was incredible and I enjoyed how the story was split between various different members of the group, including the next generation who were facing changes of their own. I loved how the women tried to remain friends with each other, despite everything that was happening around them.

While this intense drama was going on it was balanced by a peek into these couple’s lifestyle. I coveted Annie’s holiday home with it’s old fashioned charm. The events they’re all invited to, such as one of their daughter’s weddings being held in the garden at home, were lavish and beautifully arranged. These were dreamy interludes between the domestic drama that I drifted through, thoroughly enjoying how lovely they were. There was also a gorgeous little romance developing between two of the next generation, who had spent years climbing trees and running through sprinklers in each other gardens, but were now confused because their feelings were changing. In the main it was the women who stood out in this novel, whereas a lot of the husbands simply faded into the background. These were strong women, having to keep afloat careers, family commitments, parents and marriages. These are the ‘middle’ years where children still need you and parents start to rely more on their children. It’s a little like spinning plates, but at least these ladies had gorgeous homes and getaways. Let’s be honest, no one here is struggling on minimum wage. It’s gloriously gossipy though and I felt like a thoroughly spoiled fly on the wall by the end. Perfect for by the pool reading, this really was an enjoyable and addictive domestic drama.

Meet the Author

Elizabeth Noble is the internationally bestselling author of The Reading Group, The Friendship Test, Alphabet Weekends, and Things I Want My Daughters to Know. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two daughters.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

One For My Enemy by Olivie Blake

Posted on by thelotusreaders

After being slowly enticed by the glowing reviews of Olivie Blake’s Atlas Six series, I finally decided to take the plunge with this one. I’m a huge fan of Alice Hoffman so magic, romance and witchery are right up my street. However, this was the same themes but with some added NYC grit and sass.

In New York City, two rival witch families fight for the upper hand.

The Antonova sisters are beautiful, cunning and ruthless, and their mother – known only as Baba Yaga – is the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants. Their adversaries, the influential Fedorov brothers, serve their crime boss father. Named Koschei the Deathless, his enterprise dominates the shadows of magical Manhattan.

For twelve years, the families have maintained a fraught stalemate. Then everything is thrown into disarray. Bad blood carries them to the brink of disaster, even as fate draws together a brother and sister from either side. Yet the siblings still struggle for power, and internal conflicts could destroy each family from within. That is, if the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy both sides first.

I found myself hurled straight into this vivid world. It is earth but harbours a secret; witch families are vying to supply humans with magical pharmaceuticals. I loved the idea that there might be another realm within our own, hiding in plain sight. Baba Yaga has a shop – like Lush but with extra ingredients – whereas the Federovs sell on the streets and in the bars and clubs of the city. The rivalry and language of their industry was very ‘gangster’, with specific territories and penalties for stepping out of line. The patriarchal Federovs and the the matriarchal Antonova sisters. The sisters, although doing the bidding of Baba Yaga, are kept in line by eldest daughter Marya, also known as Masha. The scene that grabbed me was Masha simply walking into the Federovs lair and demanding to see second brother Dima. There has been an issue with territory and Masha believes it is Dima’s fault, so she carries out a terrifying enchantment that leaves Dima totally incapacitated. I was fascinated that youngest brother Lev tries to stop her, but is held back by his brother. Is there an honour code between the families? Even more intriguing is the obvious and immediate chemistry between Dima and Masha. The atmosphere was electric, the air charged with feelings and I was drying to know what had happened before and if these two had historic feelings for each other. If so, Masha is ruthless when it comes to business, but must have been full of hidden emotion. Would she be just as ruthless when protecting her family?

This scene showed me that Masha was confident in her power and very likely the successor to her mother. Masha is overseeing the expansion of their business. I found the idea of pharmaceutical drugs touched by magic fascinating too, I wanted to know more about their effects and whether they were largely benign. Did the customers truly know the power of what they were buying? I wondered about the family’s ethics with regards to black or white magic and was intrigued by how both families used their magic differently. Lev is sent to check out the clubs and see if he can work out the Antonov family’s next move, but he is distracted from his job by a young beautiful woman being hassled by a college student. As soon as he sees her he wants to help her, but already his attraction to her is obvious. She is very assertive and assures him she can look after herself and as Lev follows them out of the club she breaks the student’s nose. Intrigued by her confidence and the way she handled the situation, Lev offers to walk her home. Every block she tells him she can manage, but Lev has fallen in too deep already and the attraction is mutual. They have a passionate encounter down a side street. What Lev doesn’t know is that this young woman is Sasha, youngest of the Antonova sisters. As the pair fall in love, Lev confides the task he’s been given by his brothers. I wondered how she would react and whether she’s think his feelings were genuine or entrapment. Lev’s feelings are genuine and I was already wondering whether this was a repeat of Masha and Dima’s story. More importantly, if it comes to a showdown between the two families, which side would Lev choose?

Considering the amount of characters, they do have depth and feel very real. I think their back stories helped and the Russian folklore woven into their backgrounds seemed to ground them. Koshchei the Deathless is a male protagonist in Russian folklore, usually cast as an evil father figure who imprisons the male hero’s lover. He is called the immortal because he keeps his soul hidden within inanimate objects. Often he would hide his soul inside a tiny object then place it inside another object, perhaps an animal, like a rather grotesque set of Russian dolls. Baba Yaga was originally a supernatural being who hides within the disguise of a grotesque old woman. In a bizarre version of her story, which I love, she lived in a kettle with chicken’s legs – rather like the archetypal witch we all know from fairy tales. She would often take a maternal role and use that to hinder a character from the story. How these archetypes work within this story I’ll leave for you to find out. Then there’s the Romeo and Juliet parallel which certainly gives us the basic plot line of two rival families, where the youngest members of each family are falling in love with each other. That’s really where the comparisons end, because this is a loose retelling so don’t expect specific characters or even the same plot lines. This is a tragedy and it’s genuinely heartbreaking, but with gritty, real violence and it’s bloody consequences, just don’t expect the same victims. I loved that the rivalries are decades old and I think there’s definitely scope for more novels in this setting.

Although I loved Blake’s descriptive prose and enjoyed her characters, I did feel that the central love story lacked a bit of depth. I could tell these characters were in lust because their scenes were hot, but I didn’t feel the love at first. Perhaps that’s because I’m an older reader though and why I was interested in the oldest sister’s story. Also there were so many twists towards the end I had to go back and re-read sections to keep up with what was going on. However, for such a big book, it really fly by and the heady mix of love, power, magic, revenge and tragedy is a winner for sure. The art both inside and on the cover is absolutely beautiful. I feel that I could easily come back to these rival families in the future and it has certainly made me want to check out the author’s previous novels. If you like your love stories dark and laced with magic, violent tragedy and witches this is the book for you. It was definitely the book for me.

Published on 20th April by Tor (Pan Macmillan)

Meet The Author

Olivie Blake is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmuth, a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love.

​Olivie has penned several indie SFF projects, including the webtoon Clara and the Devil with illustrator Little Chmura and the viral Atlas series. As Follmuth, her young adult rom-com My Mechanical Romance releases May 2022.

Olivie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and baby, where she is generally tolerated by her rescue pit bull. More on Olivie can be found at http://www.olivieblake.com

Posted in Netgalley

The Creeper by A.M. Shine

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was terrified by A.M. Shine’s first horror novel The Watchers last year and I have been looking forward to his new novel The Creeper. It has such an interesting premise. Academic Dr. Alec Sparling lives a very regimented existence in a remote Manor House in Ireland. His house is set back, covered and disguised with vegetation. There are shutters for the windows and and bolts for the doors. What is he hiding from? He has advertised for two academics to undertake field research and chooses Ben and Chloe. She is an archaeologist and he is an historical researcher with a wealth of experience in interviewing people. They must hike out to a remote Irish village and interview the residents about their life and their minimal contact with the outside world. This is a forgotten place, wary of strangers and as they stumble through a forest, tripwires attached to church bells ring out their presence, giving the villagers plenty of warning. As Chloe and Ben finally meet the people they are shocked by their physical appearance. Poverty and hardship has marked their faces, but it’s the lack of new residents that explains the deformities they observe, years of in-breeding has clearly had it’s effect. These people are not pleased to see them and like Dr Sparling, they are nervous about dusk creeping up on them. Chloe observes the shutters at their windows, less high tech than the wealthy doctor’s, but for exactly the same purpose. Are they to stop people looking out after dark, or are they to stop someone looking in?

As the pair start to interview villagers, they get the sense they’re being fed stock answers. There is something very wrong here, but no one is willing to talk about it, except for one little girl who repeats a piece of folklore:

Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer…

As darkness starts to fall and the villagers start itching to close themselves away for the night, Ben and Chloe realise they will not be able to get back to the car before nightfall. So they set up camp in the driest grass field they can find. As they organise themselves and darkness falls, Ben gets the sense they are not alone. Towards the back of the field, there’s a shape in the darkness. Could it be a person or something worse? This is The Creeper, kept alive by the villager’s superstitions and stories, he is the nameless fear in the night and tomorrow night, he’ll be even closer.

A.M. Shine is a horror genius. His clash of old Irish folklore and modern life is irresistible. I had only read Ben and Chloe’s first day at the village when I had a nightmare! I’m very suggestible. He’s brilliant at creating a sense of foreboding in the reader and here it’s heightened by never fully describing The Creeper till part way through the book. The author knows that our own imaginations are adequate enough to scare us and there’s nothing worse than not knowing or fully seeing the thing you fear. On the first night it’s so far away, covered in raggedy clothing, that we never see it’s face. The villager’s deformed appearances also feed the imagination, leaving the suggestion that the Creeper may be even more disfigured. The doctor’s preparations are also ominous, suggesting that the Creeper isn’t just restricted to the village, but can appear anywhere. We can explain away a superstition held by an isolated settlement, who still live like it’s the Dark Ages! However, if a respected academic who lives in the ‘normal’ world is scared, then we should be too. The author also drops little clues that are easy to dismiss at first, such as the unearthly cry Ben hears as they approach the village. Is it just a child crying out or something much much worse?

The whole atmosphere of this novel is dark, damp and dreary. The waterlogged fields that surround the village create mist. So it feels like everything is obscured and shrouded in mystery. The weather is constantly damp and miserable, so Ben and Chloe’s quest feels grounded and based in reality. Their discomfort as they set up camp for the night is something I remember well from my camping days, that awful feeling that you’ll never be dry again. The contrast between what is familiar and what is very, very wrong, adds to the horror of the situation. The author leaves us suspicious about everyone; I doubted the doctor’s motives in giving the academics this mission and I doubted the villagers too. I found them furtive and secretive, I wondered what they were withholding and whether they were really as downtrodden as they seemed to be. There was the hint that previous academics had come this way and if they had, where were they and where was their research? By the time something terrifying happened my nerves were as taught as bow strings. The final confrontations and the horrifying conclusion were both expected and at the same time shocking. I kept thinking about the author and asking myself ‘he’s not really going to do this is he?’ He really did. I won’t be divulging any of the final chapters, but it really was heart-stopping. This book cemented the feeling I had after reading his first novel The Watchers, Shine has become one of the best horror writers around.

Published by Head of Zeus 15th September 2022

Meet The Author

A. M. Shine is an author of Literary Horror from the west of Ireland. It was there that at a young age he discovered a passion for classic horror stories, and where he received his Masters in history, before ultimately sharpening his quill to pursue a life devoted to all things literary and macabre. His writing is inspired by the trinity of horror, history, and superstition, and he has tormented, toyed with, and tortured more characters than he will ever confess to.

Owing to a fascination with the works of Edgar Allan Poe and his ilk, A. M. Shine’s earlier writings were Gothic in their style and imagination. When his focus turned to novels he refined his craft as an author of Irish horror – stories influenced by his country’s culture, landscape, and language, but which draw their dark atmosphere and eloquence from the Gothic canon of his past.

Posted in Paranormal Reads

Halloween Reads! Books That Gave Me Nightmares.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When thinking about reads for Halloween I started thinking about books that genuinely scared me. The ones I couldn’t stop thinking about and made me look over my shoulder as I popped to the loo in the middle of the night. I blame the Brontë’s for my love of the gothic, from the terrible creature who visits Jane Eyre’s room in the night and tears her wedding veil, to the icy cold hand of a child that reaches into Mr Lockwood’s bedroom window in Wuthering Heights. I even studied gothic literature at university, that’s how much I love the genre. What scares us doesn’t always mean the traditional ghosts, vampires and witches we’re used to. It can be a really tense thriller, a mystery or even novels that defy genre. Here are a few books that genuinely gave me the creeps!

A.M.Shine was a completely new writer to me when I picked up this novel, so I had no expectations. Since reading this I’ve been so creeped out by his second novel, The Creeper, I had to stop reading it! The Watchers was an incredible read and such an unnatural situation for the characters to be in. Lost in a deep forest in rural Ireland, Mina feels unnerved, when she hears a scream that isn’t human, but isn’t like any animal she’s ever heard either. As the shadows gather she is beginning to panic, when suddenly she sees a woman beckoning her and urging her to hurry. Mina decides it’s better than staying out here to be found by whatever made that terrible noise. As the door slams shut behind them, the screams grow in intensity and volume, almost as if they were right on her heels. They’re in a concrete bunker and as Mina’s eyes adjust to the light, she finds herself in a room with a bright overhead light. One wall is made entirely of glass, but Mina can’t see beyond it and into the forest because it is now pitch dark. Yet she has the creeping sensation of being watched through the glass. A younger man and woman are huddled together, so there are now four people in this room, captive and watched by many eyes. Their keepers are the Watchers, dreadful creatures that live in burrows by day, but come out at night to hunt and to watch these captive humans. If caught out after dark, the door will be locked, and you will be the Watcher’s unlucky prey. Who are these creatures and why do they keep watching? I have to say that just when I thought my nerves were calm, this author found a way to leave me with a creeping sense of dread.

The Beresford is my favourite Will Carver novel, because it really does get under your skin without a single ghost in sight!

Abe Schwartz lives in a one-bed furnished flat. An apartment building called The Beresford. The bell rings and he’s the one opening the front door to a stranger. Before that, he’s dragging a dead body into his room, mopping up blood and asking himself, What the hell just happened?

The Beresford is an apartment building with a difference. It has a certain atmosphere and it’s not long before you dread the door bell ringing. Mrs May is the landlady, an incredibly sweet old lady who has a daily routine from her eggs and cold coffee first thing, to her rose pruning every afternoon. As anyone who has watched The Ladykillers knows, little old ladies should not be underestimated. Does she know more about what’s going on in her building than we think? Even worse, this is only one side of the building, and what’s going on next door is even more unsettling. I’ve been waiting for Carver to elaborate on the other side of the Beresford and I’m told I will only have to wait till next summer. I know one thing for sure – I’m definitely going to be reading it in the daylight.

This is the copy of William Blatty’s book that I would sneak off the bookshelves when my parents went out. I would read as much as possible, then as soon as I heard the gravel crunching on the drive, I’d pop it back and wonder how I was going to sleep that night. When I was about 13, this book had the combination of being both terrifying and taboo – a teenage bibliophile’s holy grail. My parents had joined an evangelical church and became very restrictive in my teens, so the fact this book was even on our shelves felt transgressive. The book works because of atmosphere and tension the author creates. This is a child, so that innocence contrasts sharply with the creature Regan becomes. At first her mother Chris thinks Regan is ill. While Chris has been shooting a movie in Georgetown, there has been poltergeist activity in their rented house, but as time goes on Regan has been refusing to eat, unable to sleep and aggressive in her behaviour. Could it be psychological? The deterioration in Regan is horrific and the sense of horror that starts to come over Chris as she prepares to enter her daughter’s room can be felt. The icy cold, the smell and the violent expletives really hit home and when even a priest is struggling to contain the evil inside the girl, it’s power is still terrifying over fifty years later.

When people ask me if I believe in ghosts I always say no, not in the traditional sense of apparitions, but I do believe in energy and how a building’s past can be felt within it’s walls. Events leave an imprint behind, the emotional equivalent of muscle memory, and perhaps sensitive people can tap into those emotions. That’s the feel of this novel from Diane Setterfield and for me it conjures up dark winter afternoons and the warm fireside but outside of that cozy circle there may be something lurking and waiting to surprise you with it’s presence. Angelfield House stands abandoned and forgotten, but is full of atmosphere. It was once home to the March family: fascinating, manipulative Isabelle; brutal, dangerous Charlie; and the wild, untamed twins, Emmeline and Adeline. But the house hides a chilling secret which strikes at the very heart of each of them, tearing their lives apart…

Now Margaret Lea is investigating Angelfield’s past, and its mysterious connection to the enigmatic writer Vida Winter. Vida’s history is mesmering – a tale of ghosts, governesses, and gothic strangeness. But as Margaret succumbs to the power of her storytelling, two parallel stories begin to unfold…What has Angelfield been hiding? What is the secret that strikes at the heart of Margaret’s own, troubled life? And can both women ever confront the ghosts that haunt them…? Prepare to read this with a sense of unease, but a need to unravel the story.

Laura Purcell’s debut was so good it made her my ‘go to’ author immediately! It taps directly into those Brontë themes of atmospheric houses with creepy nighttime visitations. It builds beautifully, from a young woman who is bereaved and pregnant to the huge ancestral home, this is one of those tales that slowly and imperceptibly creates unease in the reader. When newly married Elsie Bainbridge finds herself a widow. and pregnant she is dependent on the kindness of his family. Once she reaches her husband’s family estate, she is disappointed, because far from being awed by the house, the villagers fear it and believe the Bainbridge family are cursed. Elsie pays no mind to servants talk, but maid Sarah seems intent on scouring the creepy house. in order to learn more of her family history. Then strange sounds disturb their sleep, leading Elsie and Sarah to discover a life size wooden figure. It’s like the prop for a play, but yet it has an uncanny similarity to Elsie. They decide to move it to the Great Hall, rather than leaving it hidden in the attic. They’ve also found two notebooks which turn out to be the diaries of Anne Bainbridge beginning in 1635.

Anne has written about her hope to charm King Charles I and his Queen on a forthcoming visit and support her husband, Josiah who wants to make connections. The royal couple’s daughter Henrietta Maria was supposedly conceived using white magic. Anne writes about a shop of curiosities and the Dutch heritage of the ‘silent companions’ she purchased ahead of their visit, subsequently discovered in the attic by Sarah. The figures slowly started to resemble their real life counterparts. Elsie starts to fear she is losing her mind as more figures appear and the mystifying question of what’s going starts to consumer her. This is such an original idea and much like Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist, anything that starts to magically resemble it’s owner is downright creepy! I love Purcell’s ability to create an eerie atmosphere and a very uneasy reader.

Melmoth the Witness is a figure from mythology, or is she? Known as one of the woman who witnessed the tomb on the morning that Christ resurrected, she is now an eternal traveller. Wandering the centuries she lures people into following her, whereupon they too become damned to an eternity of itinerant, solitary wandering. Set in the beautifully, atmospheric city of Prague we meet a woman called Helen and her friend Karel on the street. Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies taken from 17th-century England to wartime Czechoslovakia, the tropical streets of Manila, and 1920s Turkey. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message. Helen reads its contents with intrigue and some scepticism, but everything in her life is about to change. We follow Helen’s story, but within it are all the other stories and lives, creating a Russian doll style tale, but where each incarnation has the same sense of menace and impending doom.

I think what scared me would have scared any ‘listener’. It’s the toll witnessing takes on a person. This book takes in the breadth of the horrors experienced in Prague throughout the 20th Century. It made me imagine being present to witness the trenches of WW1, the Holocaust, and so many other atrocities and personal tragedies. I’ve worked in mental health for twenty years and I’m taking a break at the moment to study. I know the emotional toll that listening to people’s stories can take on the listener or observer. For Melmoth, this would be so much worse because she has to sit back and witness all of humanity’s horrors. Even worse, she has no power to change anything, but is doomed merely to witness. No wonder she wants other souls to witness with her, she must feel the weight of the horrors yet to come. By the end of this novel so did I.

Posted in Publisher Proof

Where I End by Sophie White

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I don’t really know where to start with this extraordinary novel from Sophie White. I finished it and sat in a stunned silence for while, unsure what I’d just read. I love books that stir up feelings and there were so many: empathy, sadness and curiosity soon gave way to confusion, disgust and horror. This is a psychological horror that’s not for the faint hearted, but it’s also incredibly lyrical, atmospheric and strangely beautiful. We follow teenager Aoileann and her claustrophobic life on an island somewhere off Ireland, where there are few residents, even fewer visitors and a dialect that bears little relation to the outside world. Aoileann’s whole world is the house where she helps care for ‘the thing’ a wreck of a human being who never speaks and whose every need is met by others. Our unease, already awakened by the strange atmosphere and narration, is further aroused when we find out ‘the thing’ is Aoileann’s mother. How did she end up in this state, unable to do anything for herself, suffering from bed sores and her hands bloody stumps from scratching at the floor during her occasional nocturnal rambles? Why are they caring for her in this rudimentary way? Aoileann’s grandmother has instigating the care routine, a rather Heath Robinson affair done with no occupational therapy, no medical equipment or intervention.Why does her grandmother Móraí insist that Aoileann stay indoors, away from other islanders and with reminders to never talk about ‘the thing’? My mind was filled with so many questions, and alongside them grows Aoileann’s curiosity about why she’s never been to school and why she had to fight to be allowed to swim in the sea. Most confusing of all is that Móraí spits on the ground where Aoileann has walked, like a Romany warding off the evil eye.

Sophie White sets the scene so incredibly well with three sections that encompass Aoileann’s world, entitled my mother, my home and my house. The house has a forbidding look. Where once it had windows and a door that opened onto the sea view and towards their neighbours, these apertures are now blocked with stones. This is a house and a family that doesn’t look outward or admit visitors. When Aoileann talks of her home she talks about the island, not the house or her family. She is a wild thing. She belongs to the sea. She hates the land. The cliffs and beaches are perilous and Aoileann feels unnerved when she thinks about the small part of the island she can see and the deep expanse of land ‘lurking beneath us’. Yet in the water she feels free. Despite it being a watery grave for the island’s fishermen, as she slips under it’s silken surface she feels most like herself and swims like a Selkie. Their house is at the dangerous end of the island, the last dwelling on the road that ends with a sheer drop. Her mother is another landscape with it’s own treacherous drops and cavities to swallow one whole. Until now her she has been tended to by Móraí, but with a new visitor centre being built for bemused tourists, she is needed elsewhere for her knowledge of the island’s history. Caring for ‘the thing’ will become Aoileann’s main role. She already hates the thought of it, the monotony of an endless routine, just pushing things in and clearing them out of her ruined body.

The author’s depiction of the diseased or deformed body as a horror took me in two different directions. Intellectually my mind went to Kristeva’s essay on abjection ‘The Powers of Horror’ in which she theorises on the human response to a breakdown between subject and object; in this case our revulsion for the materiality and fragility of the decaying human body, reminding us of our own mortality and eventual decay. Viscerally I felt instant nausea, a type of bodily-felt memory of when I was a carer for my terminally ill husband. In my own writing about the experience I have struggled to be this raw and truthful about how repulsive caring for bodily functions can be, because of the love and sense of protection I still feel about him fifteen years later. I didn’t want people to display those aspects of his care, both for his privacy and because I didn’t want others to remember his declining physical body rather than his spirit, that indefinable ‘thing’ that made him who he was. I knew there were things I felt revulsion about, so what would others think? Here though, there are no tender feelings to complicate the reality of her mother Aoibh’s ruin, we can experience it all. These descriptions are strangely routine, the strange system of ropes and pulleys used to hoist the body from the bed are relayed to us with a detail that’s forensic and almost boring. It’s as if the person relaying the narrative is as worn down by this daily grind as the grooves in the wooden floor made by dragging the chair back and forth from bathroom to bedroom. Then the reality of caring for someone helpless hits us at full force, as she relates how ‘opportunistic bacteria and fungi find life enough in her to breed in places where her skin pleats and gathers’. I remember the drying of these places, the careful patting dry rather than rubbing, the application of barrier cream and the red welts left if a spot was missed. The part that provoked the most visceral reaction in me was the detail of her ruined hands, with just thumbs remaining untouched, her fingers mostly ‘end just passed the knuckle. The pad of her right index finger has worn away entirely and the bone extends like a tiny pick from the flesh’.

It’s with this implement that ‘the thing’ scratches marks in the floor, marks they must sand away before her Aoileann’s father visits and finds out his wife is moving. Aoileann starts to wonder if these marks are an attempt at communication so she records them in a journal and tries to piece them together. If she can, they will be the only words she has ever heard or seen from this wreckage of a mother, created the day something terrible happened and turned her grandmother into a permanent nurse maid, drove her father from the Ireland and left Aoileann with a mother who couldn’t communicate and a grandmother who had nothing left to give. Motherhood has been a fertile ground for horror ever since Frankenstein’s monster first opened it’s yellow eye and came to life. There are parallels here between Aoileann and the monster, firstly the idea of monstrous birth and that nature/ nurture debate on whether such creatures are born or made. There are vivid descriptions of pregnancy, casting a foetus as a parasite, growing inside with the potential to drain the life out of it’s host. Also, Frankenstein only thought about the creation of his monster, not what to do with it should he ever succeed. The monster’s abandonment and confusion is akin to Aoileann, craving love from the women she lives with or her distant father, whose attention is focused solely on the thing in the bed when he visits. Was she born cursed? Or was she cursed by others; her family or the islanders? There’s an emotionally devastating paragraph where she relates her desperate need to be held by a helpless mother and a grandmother who has always held herself apart.

‘if I did pull myself to her and laid my head against her belly, she became rigid and stayed that way until I understood moved away again. When the bed-thing didn’t respond to me, it felt ok because I had never seen it use it’s arms for anything, but Móraí’s arms were capable’.

This neglect has created a strange, damaged, girl and in psychological terms it is easy to see how she becomes attached to Rachel, a visiting artist staying at the new centre and tasked to produce artworks inspired by the island. Rachel is a new mother and Aoileann is fascinated by her bond with her baby Seamus. The love doesn’t fade, even when ‘it’ shrieks constantly and doesn’t let Rachel sleep at night. Aoileann is also drawn to Rachel’s fecund, maternal, body in stark contrast to her own mother’s wasting and slackness. Strange feelings start to stir in Aoileann, feelings she’s never felt and doesn’t understand. There’s excitement at the ideas and opportunities Rachel represents and the sheer productivity of someone who can nurture both her baby and her creativity. Yet there’s also a strangely curdled mix of lust and a neglected child’s need to be nurtured and cradled in the same way Rachel cares for Seamus. I felt for Aoileann, but strangely couldn’t like her. I could see the terrible void at the her centre, created by an unspoken tragedy that befell her family, but also a total lack of love and tenderness. A tenderness that’s missing in the way they care for her mother Aoibh, ‘the bed-thing’. Normally, I’d feel sadness for this girl and her strange, bleak, emptiness. What I actually felt was that the void inside was too big, an emotionless black hole that might swallow up anyone who tries to care. As the book comes towards it’s conclusion the tension is almost unbearable, the horror intensifies and I feared for for anyone who stood between Aoileann and what she needed. Bear in mind that this may be a difficult read if you are pregnant or a new mum. For everyone I’d say this is a raw, open wound of a novel. The gaping, open mouthed cry of a soul that doesn’t even know what is missing.

Meet The Author

SOPHIE WHITE is a writer and podcaster from Dublin. Her first three books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill, 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019), and Unfiltered (Hachette, 2020), have been bestsellers and award nominees, and have been described by Marian Keyes as ‘such fun – gas, clever stuff,’ and by White’s mother as ‘very good, of its type.’ Her bestselling memoir Corpsing (Tramp Press, 2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the prestigious Michel Déon non-fiction Prize. Sophie’s publications include a weekly column ‘Nobody Tells You’ for the Sunday Independent LIFE magazine. She
has been nominated three times for Journalist of the Year
at the Irish Magazine Awards. She is co-host of the chart-topping comedy podcasts, Mother of Pod and The Creep Dive. Sophie lives in Dublin with her husband and three sons.

Where I End by Sophie White published on 13 October 2022 by Tramp Press as a Flapped Trade Paperback at £11.99
Sophie White is available for interview and to write pieces
For further information, please contact Helen Richardson at helen@helenrichardsonpr.com

Posted in Netgalley

Small Angels by Lauren Owen

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I love a gothic novel, something I put down to my first reading of Jane Eyre. Being only ten years old I read it as a ghost story, full of horrors like the Red Room and the haunted ghost-like creature stalking the corridors of Thornfield Hall, setting fire to Rochester’s bed and rending Jane’s wedding veil in two. So I picked this from the NetGalley shelves, my brain already turning towards the cooler air of September and the dark nights of the autumn. As it is I read it in the middle of a heatwave, but it still managed to send the odd chill up my spine. Chloe and Sam are getting married at Small Angels, a quaint little church in a wooded area with nearby Tithe Barn for their reception. The venue is situated near to Sam’s childhood village and they are the first couple to be married there. The owner has given them a key and they have a few days up to the wedding day to clean the dusty church and decorate both buildings. They’re staying at the Albatross, the village pub, and on the first night they gather to have a drink with their guests among the locals. One local man, Brian, approaches the couple to tell them a story about Small Angels that might make them rethink their plans. Others are more reticent, they don’t want Brian to tell the tale and ruin the couple’s big day. What Sam doesn’t know is that the person best placed to tell this tale is his own sister Kate.

We’re told this story from several perspectives and to be honest I did get a little confused at first. The current perspectives are split between Chloe and Kate. However, Kate also goes back to when she was a child and started a friendship with one of the Gonne girls. The Gonnes lived on a farm, close to Small Angels and Mockbeggar – the local woodland. For years they have kept up a ritual of lighting beacons every evening and ringing the church bells once a year, followed by a candlelight vigil overnight. The rest of the village have traditionally left the Gonnes to their lonely rituals, but Kate knows that the story Brian will tell the wedding party, might not be so far fetched. The Gonnes believe they are appeasing the ghost of Harry Child, a vicious and vengeful phantom who wants to keep the wood for his own, but is also very lonely. Kate is shocked to hear that one of the sisters she knew from childhood is living at the farm. Will all the generations of secrets surrounding the village come to light on her brother’s wedding day? Kate questions her brother’s sense in agreeing to hold it at Small Angels, no matter how much Chloe fell in love with it.

Chloe takes up the narrative, as the innocent bystander thrown into this strange village with it’s spooky history. Chloe has been the driving force behind the week’s celebrations and has no idea of the story Brian tells on the Hag Night. She is amazed that Sam has never told her and has thought Kate doesn’t like her because she’s seemed disinterested in their plans. She’s surprised that Kate has committed to helping out this week, not realising that she’s coming to keep an eye on things. The tension in this section is brilliant as we see Chloe sucked in by the legend and looking for local history at the library. She’s confused by the villagers avoidance of the subject, even her own in- laws are reluctant to discuss it. Chloe start to find her sleep disturbed and with Sam called away to work she’s alone at the Albatross. She can’t shake the feeling she’s being watched after taking a walk into the woods. While cleaning the church she hears an animal scratching at the door, then again at night. Has something or someone followed her? I was intrigued as to what it might want from Chloe and whether the wedding would ever happen.

The Gonnes seem to be the key to solving this mystery so I was fascinated with Lucia’s sections of the book, especially those that go back to her childhood. She lives at the farm with her father, her grandparents and three sisters: Elphine, Helena and Ruby. One day while playing, Lucia goes into the woods and finds a small boy to play with. He becomes her secret friend and his name is Harry. With all the adults working on the vines at the farm and keeping up the family rituals, it’s easy for her to slip away unnoticed. Besides she’s the black sheep of the family, Nan calls her Lucia the Bad, so I felt sorry for her and could understand why she was looking for friends. Years later she meets another teenage girl in the woods and is happy to have a second friend, but Harry isn’t so happy. He wants Lucia to himself and she’s never seen him angry. All the rituals in the world won’t satisfy his wrath and Lucia is terrified. What will happen to the Gonne family now?

As we countdown to the wedding the stakes become greater and the author creates a real sense of fear and horror. Whatever force is in the woods, it’s growing stronger by the day. The real cost of the wedding starts to become clear and I loved how the author brought experiences from the past into the present to terrify the wedding party. I had a real sense of my old Jane Eyre fears when Chloe wakes from a nightmare to find a tear in her wedding dress and her veil fashioned into a noose. I really felt the burden of the Gonne family, ostracised by the village and left with the responsibilities of Mockbeggar. Once I’d reached a third of the way in, I was hooked on the mystery in the same way Chloe was, wanting to find out more about the malicious spirit and why he is determined to terrify her. I was also fascinated by the Gonne sisters and why Lucia is the only one left at the farm. I was also interested in how long the locals had kept their heads in the sand, merely speeding up on the road out of the village to evade the woods. You’ll be asking all the same questions and more. This is a really atmospheric, modern, Gothic tale with enough scares that I kept the bedside light on once or twice.

Published by Tinder Press 2nd August 2022

Meet The Author

Lauren Owen is the author of THE QUICK and SMALL ANGELS. She studied at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, holds an MA in Victorian Literature from Leeds University, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. In 2017 she completed a PhD in English Literature with a thesis on vampires and the gothic in fiction.

Posted in Back of the Shelf

Back of the Shelf! The Taxidermist’s Lover by Polly Hall.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A modern Gothic tale of a woman obsessed with her lover’s taxidermy creatures and haunted by her past.

One stormy Christmas, Scarlett recalls the ebb and flow of a yearlong love affair with Henry, a renowned taxidermist. Obsessed with his taxidermy creatures, she pushes him to outdo his colleague and world-famous rival in a crescendo of species-blending creativity. Scarlett will not be able to avoid a reckoning with her own past as Henry’s inventions creep into her own thoughts, dreams, and desires.

Drenched in the torrential rains of the Somerset moorland and the sensual pleasures of the characters, The Taxidermist’s Lover lures you ever deeper into Scarlett’s delightfully eerie world.

Bram Stoker Award Shortlist for Superior Achievement in a First Novel • IPPY Awards 2021 Gold Medal Winner

Anyone who knows me well is aware that I have a weird penchant for antique taxidermy, so I jumped at the chance to read this. This was an eerie story of obsession from a writer I’ve not come across before, but will look out for in the future. I expected the feel of a historical novel, with something a little spooky about it and I wasn’t disappointed. Dipping in and out of the past, Scarlett addresses her lover Henry, who is hoping to my find a foothold in this niche world of taxidermy. I loved these forays into the past, as it allows us to witness a developing tale of obsession and the macabre, in the tradition of gothic fiction – one of my favourite genres. There’s a strange sensation that you are reading a Victorian novel instead of a contemporary story. Hall’s writing is haunting and sensual, and sets a dark, forbidding tone. Although it’s a second person narration it feels very personal.There’s a sense of foreboding and I kept wondering about the veracity of Scarlett’s story. Would Henry tell us a different tale? Despite it’s potential unreliability, I felt drawn in and I simply couldn’t guess how all this would play out. I think it is so compelling because of that personal feel; writer is echoing that feel of obsession by deliberately keeping her focus narrow.

Scarlett and Henry’s relationship was very fast moving, with them moving in almost immediately and getting married very soon after. She becomes involved in his career and suggests he try something different; chopping and changing animal parts to create totally new creatures, rather like the jackalope. To say Scarlett is obsessed would be an understatement really, not with Henry, but with his taxidermy. It seems very unhealthy, but when we hear about Scarlett’s twin brother Rhett and the death of her parents, this obsession with body parts starts to make sense. However, it’s sense of a very disturbed kind. There’s a Frankenstein element to the tale, both in the jumbled creatures and the sense we get that the process of making them might be more satisfying than the finished product. It’s become more about the ability of the creator than the actual creature. Some readers might feel sorry for Scarlett and I did understand how life events might have overwhelmed and damaged her psyche. I found it satisfying to delve so deeply under a character’s skin, because we don’t often get the chance to really analyse someone this way in fiction.

This is a slow story so if you’re looking for fast thrill rides this isn’t the book for you, but that said it’s strangely satisfying. If you like character, quirkiness and having all your senses engaged, then this is your book. The menace builds inexorably until you’re desperate for the worst to happen, just for it to be over. The twists come thick and fast, until you’re finally faced with the horror ending. This is dark, twisted and very unique, with an atmosphere that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.

Published by Camcat Books 8th December 2020.

Meet The Author

Hall’s writing is lush, filled with startling conclusions about the nature of art and love and death. . . [A] shudder-inducing debut.” ~ The New York Times

Polly Hall is author of The Taxidermist’s Lover, conceived while studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Her flash fiction, poetry and stories have been included in national and international anthologies and collaborative arts projects. 

You can find her @PollyHallWriter on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Praise for The Taxidermist’s Lover:

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Posted in Netgalley

Sundial by Catriona Ward

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was left slightly shell-shocked by Catriona Ward’s new novel Sundial, a state of mind that is rapidly becoming her trademark as a writer after her mind – meltingly strange and clever previous novel The Last House on Needless Street. When people ask me what it’s like to read her novels I liken it to the early films of M. Night Shymalan. Remember when you first watched The Sixth Sense? I remember sitting in the cinema as the final credits rolled thinking ‘what have I just watched?’ Then wondering if I could simply stay for the next showing and watch it again, knowing what was actually happening. They’re novels that won’t immediately show up as film or TV adaptations, because directors will be scratching their heads, wondering how best to tell the story visually, while keeping the revelations under wraps till the end. I’m waiting to see how someone manages the narrating cat, but if anyone can do it it’s Andy Serkis, who is currently developing last year’s smash hit.

I haven’t read her earliest work, but didn’t know what to expect in this new novel and whether she would be able to deliver those WTF?? moments that characterised The Last House on Needless Street. Well it turns out she can and she has. At first I was reading what seemed like a normal family drama and I wondered if we were going to have a change in style. Then there was a moment, everyone who has read it knows where I mean, where the everyday and mundane became strange and distorted. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Rob is mother to two daughters, Annie and Callie, and wife to Irving. They are a normal nuclear family, or so they seem. Rob finds out that Callie has the potential and the urge to hurt her little sister. She also finds that Callie is collecting the bones of small creatures, including a puppy from a dumpster. She also whispers to imaginary friends. Rob senses that there might be a darkness in Callie that reminds her of Sundial, the home in the desert where she grew up. Rob resolves to take Callie with her to the Mojave, and back to Sundial which has lain empty since she and Irving became a couple. She thinks this trip into the past will give her answers, but once there she is overwhelmed by memories of the past. Might she have to make a choice between her two children?

The author lets Rob start the story in the family home, establishing the dynamic of their family and the way we view them as readers. As we change to Callie’s narration, things seem very different. We realise that Callie is actually scared of her mother and this ‘mother/daughter’ trip they’re taking. She thinks Rob is looking at her differently and is worried about being alone with her. Consequently, we’re on edge with both narrators. I was never sure which one was telling me the truth of events or whether there is even is one established truth. The author is so brilliant at creating a ‘hall of mirrors’ effect where each reality becomes distorted, but in such a different way that I was struggling to get a grasp on who was dangerous and whether anyone would be leaving the desert in one piece.

With such complex books that are dependent on the scary location and unexpected revelations it’s very hard to know what to tell. I feel that Rob thinks she will shock Callie into a different path by telling her the story of her upbringing, even though I’m not entirely sure she has the ‘true’ version of events. We find out that she lived with her adoptive parents at the ranch, where dogs were kept for scientific experiments into behaviour. I’m not a huge believer of trigger warnings, but if you are genuinely upset or angered by this type of experimentation on animals then maybe this isn’t the book for you. I found this element disturbing and it definitely added to the dark atmosphere of their home. When we drop back into her childhood we know Rob believes that her father and stepmother, became a couple after the death of her mother who she only has fleeting memories of because she was so young. She doesn’t mind her stepmother, but feels an obligation to dislike her out of loyalty. However, slowly we slip through versions of this story rather like a set of never ending Russian dolls until I didn’t know who to trust. This is a perfect psychological horror where the supernatural elements may be real, or may be a delusion or hallucination formed by an unstable mind. There’s a truly sad moment where I can see Rob’s world could have become wider and full of life experiences we want for our children like friends, education and travel. Can she break with Sundial or will she be pulled inexorably back into her past?

It’s fair to say that no one is what they seem in this story. I was very interested in whether the family would be reunited again, but this seemed to become further and further away. There are believable elements; as a lot of people with horrific childhoods do, it seemed as if Rob may have replaced the ranch with another house of domestic horrors. Or had she been so tied to her past she had recreated it? There was manipulation and abuse evident alongside the hauntings. It would maybe be a stretch to say I enjoyed this book, because if it were possible I’d have been reading with my hands over my eyes! I didn’t always want to see or know more. Yet I can see that it’s a brilliant piece of writing that stirred up so many emotions from fear to hope, back to being completely terrified again.

Published by Viper 10th March 2022

Meet The Author

CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia.

‘The Last House on Needless Street’ (Viper Books, Tor Nightfire) was a Times Book of the Month, Observer Book of the Month, March Editor’s Pick on Open Book, a Between the Covers BBC2 book club selection, a Times bestseller, and is being developed for film by Andy Serkis’s production company, The Imaginarium.

‘Little Eve‘ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2018) won the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award and the August Derleth Prize for Best Horror Novel at the 2019 British Fantasy Awards, making her the only woman to have won the prize twice, and was a Guardian best book of 2018. Her debut Rawblood (W&N, 2015) won Best Horror Novel at the 2016 British Fantasy Awards, was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and a WHSmith Fresh Talent title. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. She lives in London and Devon.