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Jump Cut by Helen Grant
Jump Cut is a story that will stay with you. Emotionally tense and gloriously hypnotic, it is a story that is sure to enclose you in its tight embrace. Jump Cut is Helen Grant’s next novel and lord is it a throat punch. I absolutely adored her last novel, Too Near the Dead and this one emitted similar feelings. The impending sense of dread, brilliant character development, a sense of place. I love the gothic nature of her tales; you really appreciate the blend of history and the present time coming together to create a hugely compulsive read. Even if you’ve never read a Helen Grant book before, I 100%…
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A Moonlit Path of Madness by Catherine McCarthy
A Moonlit Path to Madness builds and builds to an ending so satisfying that I couldn’t pick anything up for days. A story like a poignant poem, its elegance leaving you stunned. Let’s be very clear from the offing – A Moonlit Path to Madness is a phenomenal book. McCarthy has captured everything I love about Gothic Horror. It’s quietly disconcerting and wholly compulsive. It’s a story that will not leave you, its imprint etched into he chambers of your heart, a permanent marking from a long-ago era. Catherine McCarthy’s writing is both eloquent and devastating. She has a firm reputation within the horror community for being supportive of other…
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The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
The Whispering Muse is everything that Gothic horror should be. It’s haunting, eerie, and compulsive. A cautionary tale that you should never underestimate a woman’s ability to exact revenge. The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell is definitely a contender for book of the year. The plight of a young woman trying to make ends meet to care for her family. Their brother ran off with another man’s fiancée and stole from Jenny’s employer threatening to bring her record into disrepute. The story is told in Victorian London and let me tell you – I was right there. I imagined the cobbled streets, the smog, the costumes, the inequality. Laura Purcell…
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REVIEW: Sundial by Catriona Ward
Sundial, much like its atmospheric veracity, blew me away. I stood in the desolated desert and allowed the dust and the sound of longing carried by the wind to scratch at my skin. I’ve never been one for extremes, especially the heat but this novel made it more claustrophobic, more suffocating, and felt myself clawing for the cool. Sundial had everything that I love in a horror story…oppressing sense of dread. A threat that is entirely human. A will to protect and survive. Horror isn’t exclusively about ghost stories, the supernatural, and things that go bump in the night. Horror examines just how the humanity (or lack thereof) of our…
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Review: Whisper Cottage by Anne Wyn Clark
Whisper Cottage is a domestic thriller about Stina and Jack, a young couple who are desperate to leave the rat race that is Birmingham. They are both sick and tired of worrying if they leave their front door unlocked even for ten seconds they are running the risk of aggravated burglary. They find their dream home in the Warwickshire village of Avoncote and they just know they are going to be genuinely happy here. Newlywed and expecting their first baby together and with the addition of the two-year-old border collie, Jobie life couldn’t be better. The only thing that niggles at Stina is the village gossip about their elderly neighbour,…
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The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins | Blog Tour Review
The Wife Upstairs is an absolutely stonker of a Jane Eyre retelling. Compulsive, enthralling but be prepared with that body armour because you are going to need it! Tragic and astounding. The story immediately calls for audience participation. You want to jump into the book and knock some sense into a lot of people but that is what’s just brilliant about this story. This story is an escape, it made realise just how boring and dull my everyday life is. Dependable husband. Three kids. Nice house. Quiet. Something that the protagonist of the story has dreamed of her entire life. The Wife Upstairs had everything that I adore about mystery…
