Showing posts with label Abominable Book Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abominable Book Club. Show all posts

Wednesday 27 December 2023

Countdown to Christmas: Day 17


Still on our pre-Christmas holiday!

Lizard



Another day in our little cottage at The Lizard.

Mulled Apple Juice




I was mulling again today! This time, it was apple juice made with the mulling spice blend we got from Spicy Chameleon last month.

Abominable Books



I'm always so behind with opening my Abominable Book Club boxes, aren't I? Today, I opened my November box. I got Schrader's Chord by Scott Leeds, You'd Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace, some chocolates, bookmarks and a magnet, plus a mystery second-hand book (which was right up my street... I know this cos I already borrowed it from the library and read it last month... haha!)

Playa del Mar Cocktails



I made Playa del Mar cocktails tonight. I mean, we are right next to a beach and the sea (admittedly, the sea is pretty wild and the beach is at the bottom of a cliff).

Tiramisu



I made another of my holiday go-to desserts (and yes, it's another no-bake one)... tiramisu. It's Rob's favourite!

Wolfburn Whisky



We enjoyed a Wolfburn whisky tasting set this evening, a present from my little brother from last time he visited the distillery.

Advent Tea



Behind Door No. 17 in my Bird and Blend tea calendar... Candy Cane!

Advent Jewellery



And behind Door No. 17 in my Avon jewellery calendar... a silver triangle pendant!

Tuesday 24 October 2023

31 Days of Halloween: Day 16


Quiet day today, after all the hard work of the weekend. And Rob was on a night shift, so there were no big festivities today.

Abominable Books



I've been saving a couple of things as a treat for when I finished the draft of my book, not least my AUGUST Abominable Book Club box. Still, the draft is done now, so I can finally open it! And I've got Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca, plus a copy of Black Static. And... Serious Pig cheese snacks, bookmarks, Franken-stan pin and other goodies.

Wednesday 26 April 2023

Beltane: Day 2


Sadly, Beltane this year continues to be hampered by illness. It's lovely being in Derbyshire, but we're very much using the time to recover and not really taking full advantage of the season. Ah well, we'll have to make up for it next year. There were a couple of seasonal things today though...

‘The May’



Continuing with the seasonal chapters from Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun, today's chapter was 'The May'.

Ronald Hutton Lecture




And it was a double bill for me this evening, as it was time for another wonderfully engaging and informative lecture in Ronald Hutton's series for Gresham College. Today's lecture was entitled 'Finding Lost Gods in Wales'.

Abominable Books



Okay, so not strictly a Beltane activity, but I'd been saving this month's Abominable Book Club box as a treat, so it seemed like a good time to open it. Amongst other goodies, this month's box had The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob Kerr and Old Country by Matt Query and Harrison Query as the featured books.

Sunday 5 March 2023

My Year in Books 2023: February

Time for this month's book review post. And as is now usual, it's most library books with the occasional Abominable Books pick in the mix!

In case you're interested, here's my post from January. And here are the books I read in February...

The Nesting by C.J. Cooke (2020)


Another library book now! The Nesting begins with a woman called Lexi, who is recovering from a suicide attempt, breaking up with her boyfriend and finding herself homeless. Lexi’s background (and particularly her relationship to her mother) is troubled, and she is somewhat adrift in the world. Riding a train to London on her ex-boyfriend’s rail card, Lexi overhears a conversation: a woman named Sophie was planning to apply to be a nanny in Norway but has now decided not to send the application. Before you know it, Lexi has decided to swipe Sophie’s CV and application form and pose as an experienced nanny for a family living in Norway. This brief summary is actually only a description of the opening chapters of The Nesting, but it's what hooked me in to the story and its central character. What followed was a story that went in a bit of a different direction, but I can see it was important to understand Lexi’s backstory to follow her motivations in what comes. Lexi becomes Sophie and travels to Norway with Tom and his two daughters. Tom’s wife has recently died, and the house he was constructing for his family was destroyed in a storm. And there may well be a supernatural presence lingering around the tragedy-struck family. There is a lot going on in The Nesting (perhaps a bit too much), so it does feel like there are a few too many threads, but there’s a great sense of atmosphere and setting.

Platform Seven by Louise Doughty (2019)


And another library book – I’m still working my way through a big pile of them, so I think this might be the theme for a little bit longer. The next book I read this month goes to some incredibly dark (or rather bleak) territory, but it comes through it with an overall feeling of hope. I don’t usually give particular content warnings in these reviews (and I quite often recommend jumping into books without any preconceptions), but I think it’s probably best you know that this book is about someone who has committed suicide, and the opening chapters give a description of a specific method of suicide (albeit with a thought-provoking perspective rarely offered in fiction) that you might want to be prepared for. The eponymous ‘Platform Seven’ is a platform at Peterborough Railway Station, and the narrator of the book is Lisa, and the opening chapters describe a man jumping in front of a train at this platform. What follows is an incredibly moving and eye-opening account of the event and the aftermath, told in a detached way by our narrator, Lisa, who also died at Platform Seven (yes – the narrator of the book is a ghost). However, this is not a book that will leave you feeling bleak in the slightest. Heart-breaking as much of it is, Platform Seven is infused with a tangible sense of connectivity, hope and humanity. While the opening chapters are unsettlingly thought-provoking, the final chapters are almost breath-taking in their scope and message.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (2021)


I haven’t read any other books by Louise Penny, but I’ve been a bit intrigued by the blurbs for some of her Chief Inspector Gamache books. I know it’s a bit strange jumping in at the seventeenth (!) book in the series, but I was quite taken with the description of this one – and, it turns out, Penny’s series can be read out of order without you feeling too lost (and with minimal spoilers for the previous books). The Madness of Crowds is set in a small Quebec village (Three Pines, which is the setting for the series as a whole) that is emerging from lockdown at the ‘end of the pandemic’. I was interested to see that the book was written at the height of the COVID pandemic, and that Penny was imagining what might happen afterwards. In the novel – as in real life – the pandemic has given rise to sinister conspiracy theories, which are gaining adherents at a frightening rate. Professor Abigail Robinson is the figurehead for one of these conspiracies. A seemingly reasonable statistician who has drawn some horrifying conclusions from her data analysis. When Robinson arrives in Three Pines to give a lecture, it seems someone has murder in mind, and Gamache has to investigate while grappling with some inner demons of his own. I enjoyed the mystery in this one, and Gamache is quite an interesting detective figure, if a little holier-than-thou. I might have to go back to the beginning of the series now!

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (2019)


I have to admit I chose the next book because of the title – it was one of the library books I got out during Imbolc – and because of the design of the cover. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the blurb, but that’s typical of me, to be honest. Harrow’s novel is a historical fantasy, which isn’t my first choice of genre. That said, it’s quite a charming book in a lot of ways, so I am glad I stumbled on it and gave it a go. January Scaller is a young girl who lives with her ‘guardian’ – a rich man name Mr Locke – while her father is away working for their benefactor. In Mr Locke’s house, January is either ignored or bossed around. She misses her father, and she becomes fixated on the idea of finding ‘Doors’ (which she describes with the capital ‘D’) that will allow her to pass from one world or another. What follows is January’s coming-of-age story, as she discovers the truth about the Doors and, of course, the truth about herself and her parents. It’s a rather light read, which is occasionally a bit of a problem as it touches on some ‘real-life’ darkness (particularly relating to race and colonialism) and pulls its punches in places. It’s also quite slow-paced, which I think is fine for a coming-of-age narrative (though it might frustrate fans of more action-driven fantasy). All in all, a pleasant enough read, though not my usual cup of tea.

Reprieve by James Han Mattson (2021)


The next book I read was from one of my Abominable Book Club boxes this year. The book’s description looked intriguing: a group of people enter an escape room game/full-contact haunted house experience, but by the final room one of them has been murdered. I like escape rooms, I like Saw, I like (and I didn’t know this was a niche subgenre, but it is) horror novels that take place in haunted house attractions. So, this one looked like a good bet for me. And oh – it really was! I wasn’t prepared for the idiosyncratic storytelling style here. Reprieve is told in a fragmented style, which is both unsettling and utterly compelling. Although it begins with the incident – in which a man with a knife confronts a group of competitors in the final room of the game – the novel moves back and forward between witness statements and interviews, and character backstories. The latter go back way before the escape room game begins, to give a full picture of the lives of the central characters and their journey towards the climactic incident in Quigley House. Issues of race and sexuality run through these stories, and these are explored with nuance and complexity. However, there are also some can’t-tear-yourself-away depictions of the ‘horrors’ that confront the participants in the game, which are so well written you almost imagine yourself in the room with them. I really enjoyed this one, and I found myself completely immersed in the story and characters. Highly recommended!

Wednesday 8 February 2023

My Year in Books 2023: January

I'm posting this a little late, but it's time for the first of this year's blog posts with mini-reviews of the books I read for pleasure (so, not including the ones I read for review or research this month). I read six novels in January, almost all of which were library books. That became a bit of a trend in 2022, so let's see how long that carries on this year!

Here are the books I read in January...

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (2009)


Things got a bit jumbled at the beginning of the year. I started a book in December that I’d intended to finish in January, but then someone recalled a library book I’d borrowed so I had to set the first book to one side so I could return White is for Witching on time! Oyeyemi’s novel is a slim but incredibly rich book that’s part ghost story, part coming-of-age tale, and part allegory (with political themes that are explicit in places, and unsettlingly implicit in others). Miranda Silver is a teenager who suffers from pica – an eating disorder that causes suffers to crave things that aren’t food (in Miranda’s case, it’s chalk). Miranda lives in a house (the ‘Silver House’) in Dover that’s open as a Bed and Breakfast, with her father and twin brother, Eliot. Miranda and Eliot’s mother died when they were sixteen, causing Miranda to have a breakdown and spend several months in a clinic. When she returns, she becomes inextricably linked to the Silver House, which – as we find out from the novel’s prologue, is sentient and, as we find out from subsequent events, vilely xenophobic. The novel has two parts – one set before Miranda goes away to university, and one that takes place after she gets a place at Cambridge – and the storytelling style switches perspectives and styles to create a fragmented, but captivating, narrative. It’s not the most subtle book you’ll read, but I read this in a single sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss (2022)


After I finished White is for Witching, I went back and finished the book I started in December. And I’m very glad I did! I got Black Lake Manor in one of my Abominable Book Club parcels late last year. It promised to be a ‘time-bending murder mystery’ like ‘Agatha Christie on steroids’. I think I prefer the first description to the second. The book’s protagonist is Ella Manning, a part-time constable with the RCMP who has to solve the murder of her childhood friend, billionaire Lincoln Shan, who has been killed in a locked room after a storm has cut off his mansion. Wait – rewind. This isn’t quite how the book pans out (although it sort of is). We don’t actually meet Ella Manning until a few chapters in. The first thing we read is a description of a shipwreck in 1804, off Vancouver Island. The next thing we read is a description of a party in 2025, at which a young Lincoln Shan exercises a peculiar power, the power to turn back time by several hours. And then we meet Ella! The murder mystery element of the novel is set in 2045, when Lincoln has grown rich as a result of his actions two decades earlier. He throws a party to show off a new innovation his company has created, but is found murdered in very strange circumstances that night. I can’t say much more without giving things away, so I’ll just say this is a strong recommendation!

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi (2020)


Eight Detectives
has an intriguing premise… Thirty years ago, Grant McAllister, a maths professor, wrote a collection of short stories to illustrate his thesis that there is a mathematical formula behind all mystery stories. Now living a reclusive life in the Mediterranean, he is tracked down by editor Julia Hart, whose publishing company is looking to release a new edition of McAllister’s stories. The book also has an intriguing format… the chapters alternate between scenes in which Grant and Julia discuss the stories and the stories themselves, so there’s seven detective stories (mostly in the Golden Age vein) and an eighth narrative that frames them. Before I started, I was expecting something like Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveller… crossed with Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Perhaps it’s because I really like those two books, but I felt that Eight Detectives didn’t quite live up to its promise. The seven stories are definitely fun to read, and I enjoyed Grant’s elucidation of his ‘formula’ (it isn’t anything a mystery fan wouldn’t know, but it was fun to see it described in mathematical terms, and it does make you think about things a little differently). The disappointing bit, for me, was the framing narrative. Don’t get me wrong, the way the details are drip-fed is well done, but it was a little bit predictable in the end. Still, Pavesi’s writing style is very engaging and Eight Detectives is a fun read, so I think it’s still a recommendation.

Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis (2019)


I’ve built up quite the pile of library books, so I’m trying to make a dent in it this month. The next book I read was a book I borrowed ages ago, and I’m not sure I should keep renewing it! Like the last book I read, Kingdomtide also has an intriguing premise (not a coincidence, of course, as I’m generally drawn to books that are a bit off-beat or unexpected). The book begins with an older couple, Cloris Waldrip and her husband, taking a small plane over the Montana mountains. The plane crashes, killing Mr Waldrip and the pilot, and seventy-two-year-old Cloris is left stranded in the wilderness. The story then alternates between chapters (told from Cloris’s first-person perspective) about the older woman’s survival, which includes help from an unlikely source, and third-person chapters about Debra Lewis, an alcoholic park ranger who becomes fixated on finding Mrs Waldrip. Kingdomtide is incredibly readable and compelling – if a little strange and grim in places (I genuinely squirmed at the bits describing Lewis’s interactions with a search-and-rescue officer). Cloris’s narration is almost mesmerizing, and I really enjoyed the way we slowly learn about her pre-crash life, as well as her ‘present day’ tribulations in the wilderness. Lewis is somewhat less well-rounded, perhaps because we never get her narration of events, and so we never get to know her quite as intimately as we know Cloris, but she’s still a pretty memorable character. I was absolutely gripped from the start with this one.

The Searcher by Tana French (2021)


And it’s another library book now! I’m a huge fan of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels, a series that ran for six novels. Her two most recent books (The Wych Elm and The Searcher) are standalone novels that are, in many ways, quite different to the Dublin Murder Squad novels, in terms of both plot and style. They’re also quite different to one another, which seems to suggest that French is moving away from being a ‘series author’ and becoming a bit more eclectic in her output. That said, The Searcher is still a mystery novel, and it does bear some comparison with her earlier work. The main character is Cal Hooper, an American ex-police officer who has moved to a remote Irish village to enjoy some rural seclusion in his retirement. As he’s working on renovating the old house he’s bought, he’s approached by a kid called Trey, whose brother has gone missing. Word has got round that Cal used to be a detective, and so he is reluctantly drawn into the mystery of Trey’s brother’s disappearance. The story unfolds at a slow pace, and the mystery here is quite as intricate as some the Dublin novels (particularly In the Woods and The Likeness), but – as in French’s other work – there’s a real focus on character and relationships. In many ways, the real draw of this book is the developing relationship between Cal and Trey, and how this fits with the claustrophobic village in which they both live.

Home by Amanda Berriman (2018)


And another library book (though this one’s from a different library for a bit of variety)! Home has something of an unusual first-person narrator, in that Jesika is four years old.. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get through a whole book told by a four-year-old, and the first page had me doubting whether I could handle the style and vocabulary of Jesika’s narration. It’s amazing how quickly those doubts went away. I was sucked into Jesika’s story by about page 3! As you might imagine, Berriman tells the story by showing us how Jesika interprets events, relying on the adult reader to understand what is actually happening. And it’s not the most cheerful set of circumstances that we discern. Jesika lives in a rented flat with her mum and her baby brother. The landlord isn’t a very nice person, and the flat is in disrepair. Jesika’s mum and brother fall ill from breathing in mould, and the family is facing eviction. Jesika also makes a new friend, Paige, who is hiding an awful secret. It’s testament to Berriman’s writing that this isn’t trivialized or obscured by Jesika’s own concerns, like what games will be played at preschool and which of the local shopkeepers are her friend. Nevertheless, Jesika is the hero of the story, and the climactic events – in which she steps up to be a hero (within the limits of being four years old) – are incredibly moving and powerful.

Monday 24 October 2022

31 Days of Halloween: Day 20


I'm still a bit behind with my posts, but hopefully I'll catch up soon. Thursday was quite a busy day, so for once there's a bit more than just tea and stories! (But there is still tea and stories!)

Today's Tea




Thursday's tea was Full Moon Brew from Sybil's Tea Co. It's lemon balm, camomile, rose and lemon zest!

Today's Story




Thursday's classic tale of horror was 'The Succubus' by Honoré de Balzac.

Tonight's Halloween Look



A different look for Thursday night's Facebook Live video.

Ghost Story Readalong Live




I did the third (and penultimate) Facebook Live video for my Ghost Story Readalong (and it turns out I can't handle having a fringe). Next week, it's Part 3 and the Epilogue!

Groobarbs Veg Box



Our fortnightly veg box from Groobarbs came on Thursday. I wouldn't normally count this as a Halloween thing, but... we got a pumpkin! (Plus parsnips, leeks, carrots, potatoes, peppers, apples, raspberries and strawberries.)

Abominable Books




And my monthly Abominable Books Box also arrived on Thursday. As well as lots of other goodies, I got The House of Tongues by James Dashner and Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss this time.

Live and Spooky Campfire Stories (Lena Ng)



Thursday's Campfire Stories video from Flame Tree Press featured Lena Ng reading her story 'The Last Train Onwards', which features in their Asian Ghost Short Stories collection. I think this was one of my favourites so far.

Saturday 3 September 2022

My Year in Books 2022: August

Well... here's a turn of events... after months and months of reluctantly publishing posts with a single book on them (two at most), my August post has TEN titles! Famine or feast, I guess. By way of explanation, I had a week off work in August, and I'd planned to just spend it at home, recharging my batteries. Also, five of the books on today's list were rereads. But then again, five of them weren't!

In case you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July

And here are the books I read in August...

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas (2020)


I borrowed Catherine House from my local library last month, but I only finished reading it this month. The blurb for this one is cryptic, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. And even now that I’ve read it, I’m not sure what genre I would say it is. The eponymous Catherine House is a prestigious – though somewhat secretive – university that selects its students carefully and makes them an offer they can’t refuse (namely free tuition and accommodation for the three years of their degree). In return, Catherine House asks its students to give themselves entirely to their studies, not leaving the university at all during their time there and renouncing everything from their former lives, including their friends and family. The protagonist is Ines, a troubled young woman who is running away from some pretty dark experiences, but who has no real inclination towards the idiosyncratic courses of study. I’ve read a few other books that use ‘archaic place of learning hides sinister secrets’ as a premise (most recently Madam by Phoebe Wynne), but Catherine House was quite different. I enjoyed the slow-burn descriptions of the university itself, as well as the claustrophobic intensity of Ines’s experiences. The devil is really in the detail here, and Thomas uses some subtle techniques to develop the madness of Catherine House (hint: watch the descriptions of food as the book progresses!). Catherine House is off-beat and sinister in all the right ways, and its ending is… well… let’s just say questions remain!

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2020)


This next book was also from my local library. Despite being a fan of his television work (Foyle’s War and Poirot specifically), I only read my first Horowitz novel earlier this year. I saw this – which is a bit of a hefty tome – and thought it might be a good one to read on my week off. And wow – I was so right about that! Moonflower Murders is the follow-up to Magpie Murders, though you don’t need to have read the first book to enjoy the second (and there aren’t any spoilers for the previous book, as far as I can tell). Editor Susan Ryeland has left the publishing world and now runs a hotel in Crete with her partner. Out of the blue, a couple (also hoteliers) ask for her help with a mystery. Several years earlier, there was a murder at their hotel. One of the staff was arrested, but they now suspect the police got the wrong man. A novelist – Susan’s star novelist who was murdered in Magpie Murders – wrote a book that their daughter believes reveals the true killer’s identity. But their daughter has disappeared without revealing what, exactly, she read in the novel. What I loved – loved – about this book is that you follow Susan’s investigation up until the point she decides to reread the novel, and then you read the entire fictional novel yourself to find the clues! As ‘story-within-story’ novels go, this one is incredibly ambitious, beautifully written and a lot of fun.

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski (2016)


If you’ve read some of my previous review posts, you might have seen me talk about Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. I’m a big fan of this series, so I was delighted when I got the sixth book, Demon, in one of my monthly Abominable Books subscription boxes earlier this year. I’ve been saving Demon for a treat, and since I was on holiday for a week (and it was my birthday), it seemed like the perfect time to read it. But then I decided I should reread the other five books first… so the next few reviews are of rereads before I got to Demon. Six Stories is the first book in the series, and so it’s the one that introduces the concept and style that I love so much. Six Stories is a fictional podcast, hosted by the enigmatic Scott King, which looks at cold cases. Each of the podcast episodes covers a different ‘story’ connected with the case, and then at the end Scott King asks listeners (meaning that Wesolowski asks readers) to make up their own minds about what might have happened. In the first book, the case is the death of a teenager a couple of decades earlier. The body of Tom Jeffries was found at an outdoor pursuit centre a year after the boy was reported missing. Scott King speaks to six witnesses (or does he? there is a bit of a twist with this one) to hear their stories and piece together the truth.

Hydra by Matt Wesolowski (2017)


Continuing with my series reread… Hydra is possibly my favourite one of the series, and it has a bit more of a punch to it than Six Stories. The first book introduces the overall concept – including the way possible supernatural explanations will be woven into each of the ‘episodes’ – but it’s really with Hydra that the series properly finds its feet. I was totally blown away by this one when I first read it, and fortunately it did hold up to a reread. The case in this one is that of Arla McLeod, a young woman who brutally murdered her family several years earlier. At first glance, it might seem like this is an open-and-shut case – there is no question that Arla committed the murders, and the explanation for her actions appears to be ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ – but there is so much richness to the story that unfolds, it’s hard to do it justice in a mini-review. Taking in various odd niches of internet culture (including Korean and Japanese challenge games, and old-school trolling), plus moral panics about dark music (via Wesolowski’s fictional ‘bad boy’ musician Skexxixx), Hydra handles its subject material with sensitivity and nuance that’s really second to none. When it comes to the Six Stories series, I came for the quirky format and unreliable narration, but I stayed for the depth and complexity of the explorations of darkness. Although Six Stories hints at some of the series’ underlying concerns, Hydra expands on these in original and thought-provoking ways.

Changeling by Matt Wesolowski (2018)


The next book in the series is Changeling, which goes in a different direction (though still exploring some of those underlying concerns). This time the case is that of a missing child: Alfie Marsden was seven years old when he disappeared from his father’s car one Christmas Eve, and no trace of the boy has been found since. Scott King is contacted by someone claiming to be a ‘friend’ who encourages him to feature the case as one of his podcast series. His coverage begins with interviews with people who knew Alfie’s parents before the boy’s disappearance, and when I first read the book I had an almost instant distrust of the narrative that was being told by the interviewees, which was heightened by being ‘primed’ not to take things at face value by the previous books in Wesolowski’s series. Obviously, on rereading, you go into knowing what you should and shouldn’t trust, but this just makes the story being constructed in the initial interviews feel that much more painful. As with Hydra, there’s a real punch to Changeling. Yes – there is the story of Alfie Marsden (and the resolution of that element made me cry both times I read the book), but there’s also another story, related to the missing child, that lingers with you for longer. Again, the sensitivity and here is really what holds your attention. Life – in all its dark, murky complexity – is far more unpleasant, and far more compelling, than anything the supernatural can offer.

Beast by Matt Wesolowski (2019)


On to Beast now, which is the one I read most recently as I originally read the series slightly out of order. In many ways, this is familiar territory if you’ve read the previous three. Scott King takes on another case – the death of an up-and-coming YouTube star in a small town in north-east England. As in Hydra, the case in Beast isn’t actually a cold one. Elizabeth Barton was found dead in a derelict town (known as the ‘Vampire Tower’) on the edge of the town in 2018. Her killers were immediately apprehended and are serving life sentences for her murder and the mutilation of her body (which was decapitated). Once again, this feels like an open-and-shut case, but Scott King is determined to see it through, to see if he can uncover an explanation for why the young men would do something so macabre. The book weaves together vampire folklore, socio-economic commentary and some internet and urban legend touchstones (I particularly enjoyed the ‘Who put Lizzie in the tower?’ graffiti that echoes ‘Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?’), but ultimately – as we’ve come to expect from the series – the underlying themes start to emerge. There’s a bit of bleakness to the end of this one, particularly in the case of one character (no spoilers!) who, it would seem, never really stood a chance. But as well as the bleakness, there’s more Gothic wildness to Beast than the previous instalments, including some wonderfully evocative descriptions and set pieces.

Deity by Matt Wesolowski (2020)


Deity
was the book that originally introduced me to the series. I remember when I got it as the featured book in one of my Abominable Book boxes – I knew straightaway that this was the series for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a million times before, but I’m a sucker for unreliable narrators and narratives, and so I was instantly intrigued by the series concept. Rereading the series in order this time, I’m not sure Deity has the same sort of punch as Hydra and Changeling (or, to a lesser extent, Beast), but it’s still got a lot to hook you in. Scott King investigates the case of legendary pop star Zach Crystal, who died in 2019 in his enigmatic mansion in the Highlands. Part of the fun of Deity – even more so than with the other books in the series – is spotting the pop culture tales that may have inspired the fiction. I also enjoyed the return of Skexxixx, and the development of this character, which (thankfully) moves him further away from the real-life ‘shock rocker’ who I’ve no doubt was an initial inspiration. As with Beast, there are some fabulous descriptions of place here, but that’s really something that’s run through the series since Six Stories. The juxtaposition of unimaginable wealth and fame with the struggling families of Zach Crystal’s fans is very well done too. In the end, there’s more of an ‘urgh’ than an ‘ouch’ at the end of Deity but variety’s no bad thing!

Demon by Matt Wesolowski (2021)


And so to Demon… Another thing you may have noticed if you’ve read my other review posts is that I sometimes don’t read blurbs before I start books. Sometimes I think it’s just better to go in without any preconceptions. Given how much I love this series, and how excited I was to read Demon, it probably goes without saying that I didn’t read the blurb or any of the marketing beforehand. So I was totally unprepared for where this one was going to go. The case in Demon is the murder of a child in the 1990s. The boy was killed by two other children, who were sent to secure units to serve out their sentences before being granted lifelong anonymity on their release. It has to be said, this is a pretty bold move from Wesolowski. The fictional case covered in Scott King’s podcast bears some similarities to the real-life inspiration (which, I’m sure, can be in no doubt), but it’s also substantively different in a lot of ways, and I think this was a sensible move. It allows Wesolowski to create a fiction – one which includes his now-trademark supernatural elements undercut by sensitive social commentary – without accidentally romanticizing what is still a very raw and painful story. However, it has to be said that Demon differs in some significant ways from the rest of the series, particularly in the ending. No spoilers, but it’s a very good conclusion, and really the only one that could be reached.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett (2021)


Demon
left me a bit reflective, so I wanted something a little lighter next. I borrowed The Appeal from my local library, and (as is sometimes my way) I didn’t read the blurb properly. I got the impression it was a straightforward murder mystery, possibly with a courtroom element, and so I felt like I knew what I would be getting. I was wrong! And I’m very glad about that, because The Appeal is an absolute joy, and it was great to be surprised. This is a great one to go into without any prior knowledge, because then your experience of reading mirrors the experience of Femi and Charlotte, the two characters through whose eyes we see the story unfold. Femi and Charlotte are law students, and, as we discover in the WhatsApp messages and email at the beginning of the book, they’ve been given a bundle of documents to read by their supervisor. The students are given no information as to what the documents relate to (and so neither is the reader), they’re just ask to read through them and work out what’s going on. It turns out, the documents are (mostly) a series of email exchanges between various members of an amateur dramatics society. What’s the story behind the emails? And what can this have to do with a legal case? Ah well… that’s what Femi and Charlotte (and you, the dear reader) have to work out. Ambitious, original, very entertaining, and a great companion to Moonflower Murders.

The Cottingley Cuckoo by A.J. Elwood (2021)


The next book I read this month was from my Abominable Books box back in December. I didn’t realize until I started to read it that A.J. Elwood is also Alison Littlewood, and so I have read one of the author’s previous novels (Mistletoe). To me, it is quite clear that Mistletoe and The Cottingley Cuckoo were written by the same person, so I’m not totally sure about the distinction between pen-names. But this isn’t a criticism! The things the two books share were all the things I really liked about Mistletoe, particularly the slightly uncanny narrative voice and the deceptively-domestic-but-actually-quite-horrifying storylines. The main character in The Cottingley Cuckoo is Rose, a young woman who dropped out of university when her mother became ill, and who now works in a residential care home for older people. One of the residents is an enigmatic and unsettling woman named Mrs Favell. The other staff leave Rose to deal with Mrs Favell, who begins to draw her into a story of fairies and changelings. I loved the way the horror – and make no mistake, this is a horror novel – grows at a slow, claustrophobic pace, almost to the point that it becomes unbearable. I also very much enjoyed the use of fairies as horror in the book. It’s not easy to do (given the twee, cute character of modern ideas of the fair folk), but it’s done exceptionally well in Elwood’s book. No spoilers, but I absolutely loved the book’s ending as well.