gothic tale

by

Guest Review: The Lost Ones – Anita Frank

The Lost Ones

Anita Frank

HQ

ISBN: 9780008341213

Description:

Some houses are never at peace.

England, 1917

Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.

Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…

 

Brenda’s Review:

I have just turned the last page of The Lost Ones and it’s up there with my top reads for 2019! Anita Frank has written an amazing story which kept me enthralled from the very first page.

It was 1917 and England was reeling from the impact of the war; Stella Marcham had returned home from her nursing position at the front after losing her fiancé and her grief was all encompassing. The fact that the family doctor wanted to commit Stella to an institution was partly what convinced her to join her sister Madeleine at the home of her husband, Hector’s family, Greyswick. Madeleine was pregnant; her mother-in-law was an imposing woman, and Madeleine would welcome her sister’s company.

The elderly Lady Brightwell and her companion, Miss Scott, along with the housekeeper, Mrs Henge, Cook and Maisie were the only permanent occupants of the old home. When Stella and her maid Annie arrived to join Madeleine, they immediately sensed the unrest and tremor of dark secrets in the walls, and it wasn’t long before the fear Madeleine felt rubbed off on Stella. But when strange, inexplicable incidents began to occur, Stella knew she had to find answers before her sister was harmed. What were the secrets that the house held – secrets that had been buried for the past thirty years?

The Lost Ones is a blend of genres – historical fiction with a mix of supernatural – and it worked extremely well. Anita Frank is a new author to me, and I’ll be looking at more of her work. Intriguing, breathtaking, heartbreaking, stunning – Some houses are never at peace Highly recommended. 5 stars.

With thanks to Harlequin Fiction AU for my uncorrected proof copy which I won.

 

 

by

Review: Wakenhyrst – Michelle Paver

Wakenhyrst

Michelle Paver

Harper Collins Australia

Head of Zeus

ISBN: 9781789540604

 

Description:

By the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air, an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry.

 

“Something has been let loose…”

 

In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father.

 

When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened.

 

Maud’s battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father’s past.

 

Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl’s longing to fly free.

 

 

My View:

Creepy gothic suspense where madness reigns supreme.

Wakenhyrst is a gothic feminist tale (is that such a genre or just the mantle I read this book with?) that oozes a chilling miasma of menace and madness. Superstition, religion and misogyny rule and life for a sensitive and intelligent female child is harsh, restrictive and lonely.

 

This character driven narrative offers an antagonist you easily abhor (the father Edmund Stearne) and Maud (the daughter) is the protagonist that you admire, empathise with and cheer on… Megalomania is Edmund Stearne – he is a tyrant, superstitious, self-obsessed, a sex manic, controlling and vile and ugly  – his beliefs, though extreme ( I hope) mirrored those of a society that held women in contempt and treated as (not very valuable) possessions. This was a very interesting study of attitudes and superstitions of the time.

 

The fens provide an eerie backdrop to the repressive madness that ruled Wake’s End. However I was expecting more, I felt the horror element lacked vitality. Creepy, eerie, repressive and yet fascinating sums up my emotional response to this narrative.

 

PS Loved the cover art.

 

 

by

Post Script: The Darkling – R.B. Chesterton

The Darkling  – A Novel
R.B. Chesterton
Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN: 9781453298541
Description:
When the Hendersons take in a mysterious teenager, they are happy to have a new addition to the family, but it soon becomes clear that Annie is no regular orphan . . .
My View: 

This novel is best read late at night, or around a camp fire or when snuggled up safe and warm in bed. It is horror story reminiscent of Rebecca by English author Daphne du Maurier, first published in 1938.  Anyone who has read Rebecca (no matter how long ago they read the novel) will be able to recall it’s brooding oppressive threat of harm, of impending doom. Chesterton masters this effect – creating an atmosphere filled with tension, feeding the reader hints, giving clues as to what may possibly happen next, something sinister, something evil.  Allowing the reader to connect the dots, to use their imagination, is a very powerful tool that works to create the tension that can be felt in your muscles, in your shoulders, in the tightness in your stomach as you read this book and anticipate the evil deeds that you know will follow.

About page seventy I actually put this book down and left it to see for a few days – this story really affected my imagination. I knew bad things were going to happen, I couldn’t stop them, I could see them coming and I wanted a little break from the tension. Saying this – this is not a gory, blood thirsty riot of microscopic detailed carnage; it is tension created by anticipation, tension created by the written word.

Chesterton does a great job – I have not felt this level of intense involvement in a novel for a very long. Reading this book is like viewing the shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho –  you don’t exactly know what is behind that screen but you do know it is going to be…bad.

A great gothic style read.