I absolutely cannot resist a ‘lost film’ horror novel, so, although I’ve struggled to get on with Tremblay’s books in the past, I was confident this wI absolutely cannot resist a ‘lost film’ horror novel, so, although I’ve struggled to get on with Tremblay’s books in the past, I was confident this would work for me. And it did! It’s the story of a cult film simply titled Horror Movie, as told by the only surviving member of its cast: the man who played a nebulous character known as the Thin Kid. I don’t want to describe the plot much beyond that; it’s one of those books best experienced with little knowledge of what is to come. It reminded me a lot of James Han Mattson’s Reprieve and John Darnielle’s Devil House, but at the same time, it’s doing almost the opposite of those books; a subversion of a subversion. That’s all I’m saying!
I received an advance review copy of Horror Movie from the publisher through NetGalley....more
This might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set inThis might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set in Barrowbeck, a valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, progressing through time from the founding of its first settlement to its fate in the near future. As we learn more about Barrowbeck, the mood shifts from contemplative to ominous and back again. Barrowbeck contains some of the folk horror that’s become synonymous with the author’s name – but there’s also reflective historical fiction, hints of magic, a couple of excellent character studies, even a bit of sci-fi (the final story takes place in 2041).
The first five stories all have elements of scene-setting, though this doesn’t mean they’re uninteresting. ‘After the Fair’, which sees a girl attending a magical travelling fair where children can win tiny circus animals, has one of the most memorable premises in the book. ‘The Strangest Case’ is haunting; by contrast, ‘Hymns for Easter’ is one of the least chilling and most thoughtful, a story that effectively captures the shifting sands of history. It’s a theme that runs through the book: one version of the world is lost; all moves on.
‘Autumn Pastoral’ (my favourite) is such a wonderful story that it feels like a novel in itself. An art valuer visits a house in Barrowbeck that’s filled with paintings of the valley – part of a strange inheritance the house’s occupant left to an ex-lover as an act of spite. This is easily the creepiest and most atmospheric of the stories; I also felt it gave me a much stronger mental image of the valley than any of the others. In ‘Sisters’, it’s the rich character development that stands out. Its obsessive protagonist is captured so well, it hardly needs a macabre twist. ‘Covenant’ is vaguely Aickmanesque, loaded with portent: a house of mismatched believers, a curious New Year’s Eve tradition.
The strength of ‘An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade’ lies in how it leaves the reader wondering. What exactly is the nature of Jason’s sinister ‘calling’? Where does it take him, after 1970? I liked many of the details in ‘A Celestial Event’, though the ending let it down; it needed to go a bit further, I think. ‘The Haven’ is good but maybe a bit too obviously aiming to tick all the boxes on a folk horror checklist.
Then there’s ‘A Valediction’, which is most effective as a way of tying everything together. As two environmental inspectors traverse the now-flooded valley by boat, they see remnants of its history, places and names the reader will recognise from the earlier stories. It’s an elegy for both Barrowbeck and the world in which it – in which we – existed. It’s common for folk horror stories to emphasise that ‘the land remembers’; in Barrowbeck, the river keeps flowing.
(PS: If, like me, you’ve listened to Hurley’s BBC audio series Voices in the Valley and have been wondering whether the stories in this book are the same – not exactly. Some have the same outline, but almost all have been rewritten or expanded for this book, in many cases significantly so. The book also has more stories (13) than the series has episodes (10). Most of the stories are much better for being fleshed out.)
I received an advance review copy of Barrowbeck from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I’ve been putting off writing about The Borrowed Hills; I’m worried I don’t have the ability to do it justice. My notes are crowded with ecstatic but I’ve been putting off writing about The Borrowed Hills; I’m worried I don’t have the ability to do it justice. My notes are crowded with ecstatic but useless phrases like ‘the real deal’ and ‘holy shit, this is a BOOK’. And in some ways I’d like to leave it at that. For better or worse, however, I like to pick apart why I loved things. So, first: this is a novel about a man, Steve Elliman, and his inheritance – not so much a literal inheritance as a way of life (shaped by centuries of farming knowledge) and character (the particular stoicism of the rural working class). It’s about how he is inexorably drawn back to the Lakes, to a volatile friend/neighbour/rival, William Herne, and to William’s wife Helen.
So many of us have a complicated love-hate attachment to the places we grew up in. What Preston does beautifully here is to capture that in a way that feels universal, but also makes it specific to the Lake District Steve knows. This is a place where farms stay in families for generations, tradition is still meaningful, and locals deride the ‘offcomers’. It’s wildly beautiful, yet bleak and hostile – a world away from the curated tourist image of the region. Every moment of The Borrowed Hills is steeped in the gristle and mulch of farming life. Some early scenes take place as the Elliman and Herne farms are afflicted by foot and mouth disease, and after reading them, that cover illustration of a sheep amid flames takes on a much more sinister significance.
Some of the language is a tough nut to crack; Steve peppers his narrative with dialect words that don’t come clear except with time and context. This creates the sense that the story, like its characters, is guarded and defensive, unwilling to letting an outsider in. (For example, the chapter titles use yan-tan-tethera, a method of counting sheep which mixes dead language with Cumbrian dialect. This is never actually explained anywhere, so it didn’t even occur to me that these titles were numbers until I was some way into the book and I realised none of the words had appeared elsewhere, so couldn’t be, as I’d vaguely supposed, place names.)
The Borrowed Hills is also a story about the violence of men alone. We’re always seeing ‘individualism’ spoken about as a modern ill; what Preston shows us, through Steve, is not so much robust independence but something more ancient; solitude as an ancient survival instinct. What can a sense of community even be, when you make your home in so remote a place? And what happens if something goes wrong within that tiny group? In a different story, Steve’s dangerous pull towards Helen might only destroy his fragile truce with William, but here it (along with the arrival of a violent new influence) becomes a threat to a whole way of life.
I read parts of this book at the same time as I was reading another, less-good book. The contrast was illuminating: while the other book disappeared from my mind as soon as I closed it, I couldn’t stop thinking about The Borrowed Hills and felt fully immersed in its world. All this bleak horror contrasting with the beauty of the landscape. There’s a central sequence that is just so exciting and tense – you feel the exhaustion, the way it never seems to end, yet how critical it is to keep going, and I read it in the same way, reluctant to put the book down until it was over.
The themes of The Borrowed Hills reminded me of knotty modern fiction about masculinity such as Ross Raisin’s Waterline and Rob Doyle’s Here Are the Young Men. But I also really think fans of Tana French need to get on this. While it’s not a crime novel (although in some ways it is?), I haven’t read anything else that approximates the same combination of a real sense of a place and a people with writing that is simultaneously lyrical, expressive and down to earth.
I received an advance review copy of The Borrowed Hills from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The Poison Tree is one of my favourites among Erin Kelly’s novels, but to be honest, I never felt it needed a sequel. So I approached this book – The Poison Tree is one of my favourites among Erin Kelly’s novels, but to be honest, I never felt it needed a sequel. So I approached this book – which revisits Karen, Rex and their daughter Alice more than twenty years after the fateful summer of 1997 – with what I’d call cautious interest. However, as soon as I started reading, that was it: I was hooked. This is Kelly’s most arresting, compelling work in years.
It’s also not exactly a sequel, not a straightforward ‘second in the series’. It works just as well as a standalone novel, and is more of a reimagining – a reboot, if you like. It sets us down in another blazingly hot London summer, among a set of characters that mirror (but don’t simply replicate) those in the earlier book. The narrative is split between Alice, now in her twenties and running a vintage clothing boutique, and an increasingly paranoid Karen, desperate to protect her family as the Capels’ scandalous past rears its head again. The plot hinges on Alice’s obsessive curiosity about her parents’ history; her relationship with the sketchy (or is he?) Gabe; and the mystery of an eerily familiar stranger who’s keen to make contact with Alice. It has the heart and soul of the paciest thriller while it explores the depths of familial love from multiple angles.
It’s a brilliant way of approaching the premise, and you can absolutely read it if you haven’t read The Poison Tree. In fact, it might be even more enjoyable that way – a couple of things readers of The Poison Tree will already know are treated as plot twists here. I wasn’t bothered by this, though: even if you already know what’s coming, it all works because the perspective is new, the stakes different.
A real treat for fans of Kelly’s debut, but great in its own right, too. And so gripping, from first to last. Calling it a page-turner is an understatement; the speed with which I tore through this thing must actually have broken some record, if only a personal one.
I received an advance review copy of The House of Mirrors from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Quite silly and very entertaining. You can probably glean everything you need to know about this book from the marketing tagline branding it ‘the darkQuite silly and very entertaining. You can probably glean everything you need to know about this book from the marketing tagline branding it ‘the dark academia event of 2024’. Like The Cloisters, it appears to have been written and published with this particular niche in mind, and also feels quite juvenile compared to the novels it strives to emulate – perhaps best suited to readers who are just making the jump from YA to adult fiction. It’s the tale of four scholarship students at a private school where the social hierarchies are strict and the bullying is relentless. While narrator Rose makes some headway towards fitting in, her eccentric roommate Marta is less fortunate. When a popular girl is involved in an accident, Marta is blamed and the central ‘four’ are dragged into a bizarre game of subterfuge. The story is told from an adult perspective by Rose, but aside from a brief epilogue, it doesn’t delve into the characters’ lives after these events, instead concentrating on their school experience only (which, again, makes the book feel like it has quite a young focus). At the same time, the miseries heaped on one character are so extreme that they start to tip the scale into parody. Still, I can’t deny the narrative power this book has. It held my attention and absorbed and compelled me when nothing else could. It’s a gripping story that’s best not taken too seriously.
I received an advance review copy of The Four from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The Terror meets Heart of Darkness; a blood-soaked, frostbitten treat. Years after an infamous failed expedition, a captain with a sullied reputation The Terror meets Heart of Darkness; a blood-soaked, frostbitten treat. Years after an infamous failed expedition, a captain with a sullied reputation must return to the Arctic in search of a lost party that includes his former lieutenant. Wilkes has a masterful command of description and detail, so while this is not a quick read, it is thoroughly immersive and enthralling at every level: setting, atmosphere, character. I wanted to follow William Day forever, and the mental image of ‘Fort Stevens’ will stay with me for a long while. Gory and gorgeous.
I received an advance review copy of Where the Dead Wait from the publisher through NetGalley....more
‘Saint Barbara’ by Nina Allan. You knew I was going to say this – but it’s genuinely my favourite of hers in My favourite stories from this anthology:
‘Saint Barbara’ by Nina Allan. You knew I was going to say this – but it’s genuinely my favourite of hers in years, a story I wanted to read again as soon as I’d finished it (and putting it first in the book is a bold move because it sets the bar high). Two women meet at a book signing, become unlikely friends, and encourage one another in their dreams of revenge. And then there are all the details: Deb’s love of the writer Olena Pohorska, and her own writerly aspirations; her assessment of Barbara’s appearance, and how that first impression evolves; the imagined stories, the imagined art. Deb’s descriptions of Pohorska’s work feed, playfully, into Allan’s fictional universe like an ouroboros – as though Allan is speaking to her dedicated reader, or maybe that’s just how I felt, but it fits so neatly with the story that I couldn’t stop thinking it. Like all the best short stories, ‘Saint Barbara’ feels like a whole world in miniature.
‘Under Cover of Darkness’ by Stephen Volk. While it’s essentially a fictionalised version of real events, this is a narrative Volk makes his own, adding a twist scarcely more horrible than the true story.
‘Facts Concerning the Disappearance of the Orloff Six’ by Alyssa C. Greene. A plausible urban legend, smartly told, full of foreboding.
‘The Service’ by Ally Wilkes. A Spanish waitress in a run-down English seaside town, a shabby 1970s hotel, a missing girl... I’m really looking forward to reading a collection of short stories by Wilkes one day as she is stunningly good at capturing atmosphere and mood succinctly.
‘The Fig Tree’ by Lucie McKnight Hardy. An excellent example of the family drama/folk horror combination that is becoming this author’s trademark.
Of the rest, I liked Ronald Malfi’s ‘Remember Me’, which nails the atmosphere of Halloween (a surprisingly rare thing), and Carly Holmes’ uncomfortable and deeply terrifying ‘Dodger’.
There are 20 stories in this book, which in my opinion is a few too many; I prefer my anthologies more tightly edited and selective. It also (broadly speaking) leans away from the ghostly, strange and ambiguous and more towards the supernatural, animate and gory, so most of it just isn’t in line with my tastes. I admit I was starstruck by Allan’s name (and the generally impressive list of contributors!) and didn’t pause to think about whether the concept was likely to appeal. Every stripe of horror is represented here – no doubt a plus for lots of readers, but this is not the best anthology to pick up if you have strong ideas about which subgenres you love and hate.
I received an advance review copy of Darkness Beckons from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Aliya Whiteley’s latest novel is unique, a ‘hero’s journey’ more colourful than life, a sense that there is a lacquer over the top of what we read aboAliya Whiteley’s latest novel is unique, a ‘hero’s journey’ more colourful than life, a sense that there is a lacquer over the top of what we read about Fairly – a young ‘quester’ setting off from her home village to explore a strange land. A feeling that we’re reading a description of a videogame rather than seeing the coding underneath, or the inspiration for the story. Which makes it perfect that there is in fact an additional layer of interpretation: hundreds of years later, an archivist living in a very different world (where the individual no longer truly exists, as human consciousness is shared) finds Fairly’s story and annotates it, trying to decode its meaning.
Fairly’s story, titled The Dance of the Horned Road, is weird and sometimes inscrutable, with repeating motifs such as mysterious creatures called cha, a ‘chain device’ Fairly must press at pivotal points in her journey (and which always causes the narrative perspective to shift), and the sinister ‘breathing man’ who stalks her all the way. It can feel useless to try and impose a moral on any of it. My take is that it’s best understood by way of the tension between Fairly’s solitary quest and the archivist’s existence as a person in whom ‘all the information ever amassed’ is contained. It reminded me of books like Confessions of the Fox, The Book of Luce and The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas – none of which are SFF, but all centre on a similar idea about a narrator trying to excavate the truth from a document/cache of evidence, layers of reading on top of reading.
I received an advance review copy of Three Eight One from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The setting of Penance (a Northern seaside town in decline), the crux of the plot (what is the truth about a notorious murder that took place seven yeThe setting of Penance (a Northern seaside town in decline), the crux of the plot (what is the truth about a notorious murder that took place seven years ago?), and the format (a mixed-media approach incorporating lots of interviews) all make it feel like a long-lost cousin of the Six Stories series, though here the medium is a true-crime book written by a shifty journalist – think Joseph Knox’s True Crime Story – rather than a podcast. The crime at its centre is the gruesome death of a teenager after she was set on fire by three classmates. Like an ever-growing number of modern novels about murder, it’s concerned with the mechanics of true crime and how ‘true’ it ever really is, though I don’t think Clark’s concern lies as much with the ‘ethics of true crime’ as it does with the messiness of ‘the truth’ and how we come to decide what we believe. What is truth, really, when there is no single tidy, complete version of a story?
But more than that, and above all, it’s a book about teenage girlhood. The plasticity of identities at this age; how friendships can so easily curdle into enmity (or, really, were only ever enmity in the first place). How a strange idea – a piece of local folklore, or something from the internet – can fatefully take hold. How all this continues to define a person for years to come, maybe even forever: as one character says, ‘there’s a bit of you that’s always a teenager, isn’t there?’ And it’s even more specifically about the experience of the late-millennial, borderline-Gen-Z micro-generation whose adolescence coincided with the boom years of Tumblr.
Penance doesn’t quite pack the same punch as Boy Parts because it isn’t driven by a single voice. Yet it’s more immediately a book I want to reread, a book I’m already looking forward to revisiting. I can’t get enough of the method of telling a story like this through a multitude of accounts: when they’re written well (and this is) these are one of my favourite types of books, such an effective way of getting under the skin of a place/community/event/anything, really. Clark also seamlessly folds elements of online culture into the story, something that’s easy to get wrong but here rings true. I’m all for more layered, choral, shifting-truth narratives like this: I love Six Stories, I loved this one (I’d honestly be delighted if this turned into a series as well), I hope it’s huge and sparks off a whole new wave of them.
I received an advance review copy of Penance from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Paula Cocozza is a master of suburban tragedy, and this second novel an interesting companion to How to Be Human, her uniquely memorable debut. Speak Paula Cocozza is a master of suburban tragedy, and this second novel an interesting companion to How to Be Human, her uniquely memorable debut. Speak to Me starts off as the tale of a woman, Susan, who’s convinced she’s losing her husband to his phone. She’s determined to separate Kurt from the device she calls ‘Wendy’, going as far as to hide and destroy multiple phones (even as she seems to have little idea what to say to Kurt once he’s phoneless). Yet Susan has her own preoccupation with an inanimate object: a case full of old love letters that went missing when she and Kurt moved to their current home in a soulless new-build estate. As Susan’s twin quests – to triumph over ‘Wendy’, and to get the case back – gather pace, she’s forced into a painful reckoning with her past.
The narrative is strongly voice-driven, with Susan’s pain, anger, pettiness and bone-dry wit ringing out from the page. I have never really been a fan of ‘person inexplicably obsessed with an ex from years ago’ stories, and this book tested my patience a bit in that regard; I got to a point where the mere mention of Antony’s name was enough to make me roll my eyes. As much as the reader understands that the obsession (like Susan’s missing case) is symbolic, it feels like a step down from How to Be Human, in which a similarly unsettled protagonist’s primary obsession is with a fox – a weirder, more engaging way of tackling the same idea. As both books are about a woman unravelling as she develops a fixation with something, it’s hard not to compare them; measured against the powerful dread summoned up by the disturbing images and maddening scenes in Human, all the emotions in Speak to Me feel dampened. Though it is a recognisable as a manifestation of profound unhappiness, I was exasperated by Susan’s inertia, and it never feels like she gets to the bottom of who she is or what she wants. While I didn’t expect a neat resolution (and indeed understand that this is the tragedy of Susan’s story), such lack of insight is frustrating in a character-centric novel. Mixed feelings overall: Cocozza’s writing is excellent but Susan’s world, past and present, is portrayed so joylessly I found this a dispiriting read.
I received an advance review copy of Speak to Me from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Flux is a novel as dazzling and stylish as its bright-yellow cover. It’s a time-travel mystery filtered through its central character’s obsession withFlux is a novel as dazzling and stylish as its bright-yellow cover. It’s a time-travel mystery filtered through its central character’s obsession with a 1980s neo-noir detective show, and it also involves a suspiciously inert tech company led by a wunderkind entrepreneur (yes, there are Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos vibes here) – but at is heart is a story about family, grief, identity. Once the book hit its stride, I could hardly bear to tear myself away from it. Three narratives, each as compelling as the next, entwine to fantastic effect. The writing is excellent; the plot is beautifully structured and the details frequently unexpected, with the overall result reminding me of The Gone World, Reprieve and John Darnielle’s books. Equally thrilling and thoughtful.
I received an advance review copy of Flux from the publisher through NetGalley....more
(3.5) I adored Sarah Bernstein’s debut, The Coming Bad Days. This second novel is written in a similarly distinctive style – opening lines: It was the(3.5) I adored Sarah Bernstein’s debut, The Coming Bad Days. This second novel is written in a similarly distinctive style – opening lines: It was the year the sow eradicated her piglets. It was a swift and menacing time. The plot, such as it is, is broader in scope, or maybe it’s just that it’s a little more unfocused, or felt that way to me. The narrator is a woman who sees her life as having been defined by obedience to her ‘many’ older siblings. In keeping with that, when her eldest brother asks her to stay with him in an Anna Kavan-esque ‘remote northern country’, she acquiesces without question. From there it unfurls in several directions: the brother’s ailing health, the suspicion of the locals, a thread of what seems like folk horror, and ultimately, a sort of reckoning with the weight of history. As in in Bad Days I found the writing very striking, but these pithy, glacial sentences are most successful when the narrative concentrates on the personal; less so when applied to bigger themes. A book for those who appreciate the eerie and ambiguous – it reminded me (again) of Fleur Jaeggy, and also Marie NDiaye’s That Time of Year.
I received an advance review copy of Study for Obedience from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Unputdownable, but very difficult to review. Full of secrets. A novel that sort-of-is, sort-of-isn’t horror, perhaps best described as a contemporary,Unputdownable, but very difficult to review. Full of secrets. A novel that sort-of-is, sort-of-isn’t horror, perhaps best described as a contemporary, meta gothic romance. It’s a story about murder that deals with the long shadow it casts. It’s about writing and witchcraft, unrequited love, the death of the author, and not being able to move on from things that happened, or things you felt, when you were very young. Broke my heart a bit. My favourite of Ward’s books since Rawblood. Recommended.
I received an advance review copy of Looking Glass Sound from the publisher through NetGalley....more
When his sister and her husband are killed in a car crash, writer and professor Gil Duggan becomes the guardian of his 17-year-old nephew, Matthew. AnWhen his sister and her husband are killed in a car crash, writer and professor Gil Duggan becomes the guardian of his 17-year-old nephew, Matthew. And, family tragedy aside, he’s not exactly happy about it: Gil has hated Matthew since an incident involving his daughter on a family holiday some years ago, and believes he is a nascent psychopath. When Matthew moves into the Duggans’ home in Vermont, tensions rise. Gil becomes increasingly obsessed with his nephew, partly because of his jealousy of Matthew’s immense wealth (his father was a high-flying banker). Matthew certainly seems devious. But Gil, we know, is an unreliable narrator, and the more he crosses the line – following Matthew, devising outlandish theories – the more his credibility falters.
There are no true surprises here: as so often with this type of story, the pleasure is in the writing, and in the small details of the characterisation, particularly of Gil. I am getting a bit tired of the archetype he represents – the perfectly comfortable middle-class person who thinks not being super-rich is the same thing as being poor – but it’s undeniably used very well here: so clearly an obsession Gil can’t let go of, as much a factor in his disintegration as his hatred of Matthew. Things are wrapped up really smartly at the end, too, with a conclusion that’s satisfying on several fronts. I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoyed A Lonely Man or Hawk Mountain.
I received an advance review copy of A Flaw in the Design from the publisher through NetGalley....more
(3.5) I read Terminal Boredom, the first translated collection of Izumi Suzuki’s work, in 2021, and it became an instant favourite – quite simply one (3.5) I read Terminal Boredom, the first translated collection of Izumi Suzuki’s work, in 2021, and it became an instant favourite – quite simply one of the best short story collections I have ever read. I was excited to read more of her fiction in Hit Parade of Tears. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor. While the characters have similarly distinct personalities and voices, the pieces collected here are often more successful at capturing a mood than telling a story.
There are recurring details that sometimes make Hit Parade of Tears seem like a particularly idiosyncratic novel-in-stories. The overall vibe is one of 1960s and 70s counterculture, epitomised by political statements and, particularly, music. (This also makes Hit Parade feel more obviously rooted in the time it was written, and much less prescient, than Terminal Boredom.) Another theme concerns characters who live among ordinary people, but believe themselves to be alien in some way – though it’s often unclear whether these beliefs are delusions. In this book we meet people who see visions of the dead, or other worlds; who can remember little of their recent past; who suspect they were born on another planet or have been alive for centuries.
The best story in the book is ‘The Covenant’, in which two misanthropic girls decide to to make a ‘sacrifice’ together; it’s alive with well-developed characters, an original plot and a vivid sense of cynicism. I really liked ‘Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise’ too: a proper sci-fi story about a crew scouring a planet for strange animals, it has the most solid plot and is also really funny. ‘Hey, It’s a Love Psychedelic!’ combines strong cultural context with an intriguing time-travel twist, although it ends abruptly (a repeating problem). I loved the atmosphere in ‘Memory of Water’ – its sense of despair, details like the 3D art experience; it felt closest to what I was expecting from the stories in this collection.
I initially thought ‘My Guy’ was an odd choice to open the book. Although it begins promisingly, and the narrator’s voice is immediately distinct, the narrative is choppy and difficult to follow. But perhaps it’s an appropriate first story after all – emblematic of the problems the weaker stories share. ‘I’ll Never Forget’, for example, is a sequel to the story ‘Forgotten’ from Terminal Boredom, but is far less successful; disjointed in a way that makes its events confusing.
A trio of stories – ‘Full of Malice’, ‘After Everything’ and ‘The Walker’ – seem to be connected, sharing a common thread about a woman searching for her younger brother. They also operate according to a kind of dream-logic where absurd incidents pass without comment, reminding me of Leonora Carrington’s surrealist fiction. ‘The Walker’ is relatively strong as a strange, brief standalone story. ‘Full of Malice’, apparently one of the author’s earliest works, is very short yet still lacks clarity, and could have been left out (if not, I suppose, for its connection to the others).
I enjoyed this new selection... but some of the stories in Hit Parade of Tears made me wonder whether those in Terminal Boredom represented the absolute apex of the author’s work, with the remainder inevitably being less impressive. There is no doubt that Terminal Boredom is the superior collection. If you haven’t read Izumi Suzuki before, start there.
I received an advance review copy of Hit Parade of Tears from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The Writing Retreat seems to promise a cosy locked-room mystery with a gothic backdrop, but there’s a strong flavour of something far more unconventioThe Writing Retreat seems to promise a cosy locked-room mystery with a gothic backdrop, but there’s a strong flavour of something far more unconventional – Mona Awad’s Bunny being perhaps the best comparison – to the wild, outré trip it ultimately delivers. The story wastes absolutely no time getting going, with the characters and elaborate premise set out swiftly. Would-be writer Alex is among the group of young women – another being her icy ex-best friend, Wren – who win places at an exclusive writing retreat, organised by reclusive horror author Roza Vallo and hosted at her isolated castle-like mansion. Almost as quickly, we find out the retreat is in fact a high-stakes competition. From there, the plot is best described as a demented rollercoaster that’s equal parts creepy, horny and zany. It proceeds at a breakneck pace (no complaints there), twists all over the place, and is fantastic entertainment. What with this and Death of a Bookseller, I have to wonder: is 2023 set to be the year of the unhinged publishing thriller?
I received an advance review copy of The Writing Retreat from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Fun, fun, fun! I was enthralled by the world of The Whispering Muse as soon as I started it. A fading Victorian theatre, a reputedly cursed actress, aFun, fun, fun! I was enthralled by the world of The Whispering Muse as soon as I started it. A fading Victorian theatre, a reputedly cursed actress, a suspicious (and highly melodramatic) wife: could there be a better setup for a spooky historical mystery? Purcell doesn’t put a foot wrong here, and it’s always easy to understand why narrator Jenny can’t extricate herself from this tangled web of obsession and betrayal. A thoroughly enjoyable gothic confection, filled with great characters and vivid scenes.
I received an advance review copy of The Whispering Muse from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Thin Air meets Event Horizon is my quick pitch for Nicholas Binge’s second novel, a mind-bending, reality-splitting adventure in which a reluctant sciThin Air meets Event Horizon is my quick pitch for Nicholas Binge’s second novel, a mind-bending, reality-splitting adventure in which a reluctant scientist joins a crew climbing an impossible mountain. I was surprised by how different this is from the author’s debut, the excellent Professor Everywhere; it’s significantly more high-octane and much more ambitious in scope, with forays into horror territory that lean towards the bloody.
Physicist Harold Tunmore is missing for almost 30 years before his brother discovers him living, anonymously, in a psychiatric hospital. His story is told via a cache of letters written by Harold to his niece. These chart a mission he claims to have been a part of: in 1991, he was (so he says) one of a group put together to scale and research an immense mountain that materialised out of nowhere in the middle of the ocean. It’s a place where people are not themselves and time appears altered – and the further the team go, the weirder things get. Ascension is packed with dramatic scenes and eerie dialogue that give it a particularly cinematic feel. I especially loved how Binge developed the character of Jet (who gets all the best lines). Yet it also has room for contemplative, even philosophical moments and a solid backstory for Harold. A wonderfully wild ride that’s a cut above your average sci-fi blockbuster.
I received an advance review copy of Ascension from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Penman here offers a memoir-in-pieces by way of an overview of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s life and prolific filmmaking career, combined with a sort ofPenman here offers a memoir-in-pieces by way of an overview of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s life and prolific filmmaking career, combined with a sort of rough cultural history of 1970s Germany. The author sets out his stall with the first sentence of the book proper: ‘The first thing to proclaim is: the absolute impossibility of summing up Fassbinder.’ (Despite that, he does find a neat way of collectively describing Fassbinder’s thematically and aesthetically diverse output: ‘malign fairytales for jaded adults’.) Thousands of Mirrors is not supposed to be comprehensive – while a few of Fassbinder’s films are discussed in some detail, others have only a brief paragraph devoted to them, and Penman is most interested in personal aspects, in puzzling out why exactly Fassbinder became so significant in his own life. Mulling over the effect of the whole piece, I feel both Fassbinder and Penman remain somewhat obscure to me, but I don’t find that to be a problem. The book, deliberately a set of glimpsed fragments, is aptly titled.
I received an advance review copy of Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I don’t quite know how Janice Hallett manages to write such long, complex, high quality books so quickly, but I’m really glad she does, because I cannI don’t quite know how Janice Hallett manages to write such long, complex, high quality books so quickly, but I’m really glad she does, because I cannot get enough of her writing and plotting. More in the vein of The Appeal than The Twyford Code, this is another irresistibly page-turning mystery, this time following true crime author Amanda Bailey as she attempts to revive her career with a book about a cold case. The ‘Alperton Angels’ were a tiny cult in the early 2000s; after several members died, their manipulative leader was given a life sentence. Amanda’s new angle is to track down a baby rescued from the group – the child will now be 18, and an exclusive interview would launch her book with a splash. But her search runs into so many baffling dead ends that it seems a conspiracy is afoot...
What ensues is told as a patchwork of text messages, emails, transcriptions, extracts from books and scripts, etc. This is a format I simply never get tired of; it’s as moreish as a box of chocolates, and it allows for the narrative to be funny and irreverent as well as gripping. And in the end, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels is a story about deception, resentment and professional rivalry as much as it is a crime novel. It relies not so much on plot twists but on shifting the reader’s perception of what the story is really about. Oh, and there’s also a very entertaining creepy/quasi-supernatural element thanks to the unexplained events surrounding the cult. A clever, unpredictable and extremely enjoyable book.
I received an advance review copy of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Loading...
