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Tag Archives: Psychological Thriller

Fellside by M.R. Carey

31 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review

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Ghosts, Horror, Prisons, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural

I’ve been waiting forever for this to come out in paperback and I devoured it in two evenings! A shame that it was over so soon, but wow, what an experience.

Carey’s word-of-mouth bestseller, The Girl With All The Gifts, is about to released as a film (please read the book first!) and definitely has ranked him as one of my favourite, must-read authors in the horror genre. Fellside initially feels so different to The Girl, but the same strengths are there – vivid, corporeal characters who you really care for, a strong plot that won’t let you go, and a perceptive, subtle subversion of the genre. Fellside

Jess Moulson is a nice person with a bad, bad habit. It leaves her amnesiac, with half her face burnt off, and one of Britain’s most notorious female criminals, sentenced to Fellside, a grim women’s prison in Yorkshire. Devastated by what she’s done, she goes on hunger strike, wanting to end it all – but the ghost of a young boy won’t let her die. He needs her to find out the truth about his death- which means delving into the minds of her fellow inmates. Cue surreal sequences in the other world, which could be dreams, the afterlife, insanity, or even hell. But unknown to Jess, the staff and inmates of Fellside have their own vested interests in whether she lives or dies, and she’s caught in a violent web of corruption and manipulation; trapped between two worlds, Jess must fight for survival in both.

Like Miss Justineau in The Girl, Jess is a very sympathetic character, and her journey really hooked me in to the narrative. The thing about Jess is that she just wants to keep her head down, not to get involved; but both before and during her incarceration, she is no bystander. The conflict between selfishness and doing the right thing is very finely observed and this is the recognisable flaw that makes her such an empathic and real character. Carey’s are all strong female characters (the cast in Fellside is largely female!) and a delight to meet, even those who are truly evil like Harriet Grace, the lifer who controls Goodall block and directs the violence. And the male characters are similarly believable – like the Sergeant in The Girl, whose story evolves from villain to hero, deliciously vile prison officer Devlin (the Devil) and poor lost Dr Salazar (Sally) have their own tragic and poignant trajectories which grip you. tgwatg

The supernatural elements in some ways form the subplot of Fellside, and can almost be a matter of interpretation; is the other place to be taken at face value, or is this the effect of drug addiction, or mass delusion? The psychology of incarceration is at the forefront, and this is where it differs from The Girl With All The Gifts, which is very firmly in established horror territory; Fellside is much more internal, a state of mind.

I loved it – compelling drama, characters that punch their way off the page, a touch of genuine spookiness and twists and turns that will floor you as effectively as Big Carol herself.

Rating: ****

Orbit Books, 2016, ISBN 9780356503608

The Girl With All The Gifts – Official Trailer

The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson

19 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review, Uncategorized

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Ghosts, Horror, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural, Thriller

This is a novel I’d been eagerly anticipating reading and it didn’t disappoint! In fact, I would say that this is Myerson’s best novel so far. It’s a harrowing, but beautifully told, tale of loss, grief and evil.

Mary and her husband Graham buy an old farmhouse in rural Suffolk – it’s a new start, an attempt to save their marriage, after the tragic deaths of their daughters. But making space in their lives for new friends is not easy – even when they are so easy-going and understanding as Eddie and Deborah. And for Mary, there’s a strange undercurrent in their new home, an awareness of something other. Could it be a ghost?

A hundred years ago, the farmhouse was home to Eliza and her large family. One night, during a terrible storm, a stranger arrives seeking help and the family take him in. It’s not long before James has his feet well under the table and his relationship with teenage Eliza evolves into something sinister. Just who is he really, and what does he want?

Sometimes in novels that are split between two different times or narrators, you end up favoring one over the other. But not so in this case – the two stories are woven together so assuredly they are like the two sides of the heart in question, and that it will be stopped is painfully evident as the narrative progresses. What Myerson does is surprise you – this is not just a story about evil acts and the grief they beget, but also about the hope that comes in the wake of the storm. She tells you that it is possible to heal, and that healing might come about in a totally unexpected way. The story is harrowing; she does not flinch from tackling very painful and disturbing subjects, but her prose is so beautiful, so insightful, she carries you along the darkest path always with a glimmer of light.

StoppedHeart

This  is a stunning read. My Mum has just returned my copy and said she couldn’t put it down; we had both been affected by the same particular moments in the narrative, and the story will stay with us both for a very long time.

Jonathan Cape, 2016, ISBN 9780224102490

Rating: *****

The Merrily Watkins series by Phil Rickman and Midwinter of the Spirit on TV – a personal reaction

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Anniseed in Uncategorized

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Abuse, Crime, Merrily Watkins, Paranormal, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural, Thriller, TV

***Warning: contains spoilers***

I make no bones about it, but I have an obsession. Since accidentally discovering the latest title in this series – The Magus of Hay – I went back to the beginning  (The Wine of Angels) and worked my way through all twelve books. Then I did it again. And again. And I’m not the only one – Phil’s Facebook group currently has 1814 members and we’re all equally enthralled by the ongoing story of single mother, vicar and exorcist Merrily Watkins. They’re supernatural crime dramas – an unusual mix of two genres which somehow mesh perfectly in Phil’s prose, in a world so carefully crafted it’s like a second home.

Set in the borderlands of Herefordshire and Wales, Merrily struggles to balance her duties to her parish, her ambivalent interest in the world of the paranormal, and her relationship with her pagan teenage daughter Jane, all the while walking the tightrope of political machinations in both the Diocese and the media. As a woman in a man’s world, and doing a job many see as frivolous, she tries to retain her integrity as well as develop her spirituality. Called in on occasion to help the police with their more unusual cases, her life is anything but ordinary. She’s utterly believable as a character, and makes the whole concept of an exorcist work for even the most sceptical of readers.

Surrounding her are a large cast who are all drawn with such deftness and vitality that you feel like you really know them. Feisty Jane, Merrily’s daughter and environmental activist, is definitely my alter ego! Lol Robinson, Merrily’s cautious lover, is a man locked in his own tormented past, and his efforts to move beyond this are moving indeed. Huw Owen, her exorcist mentor, is wonderfully irascible and ambivalent. Frannie Bliss is the tame, slightly maverick copper whose blood is 95% caffeine (I confess to being slightly in love with Frannie), and Annie Howe is his ambitious and hard-nosed boss, the antithesis of Merrily’s emotional centre. And Gomer Parry , the wild and wily old Welshman and proprietor of a plant hire company, is a brilliant creation – saving the day on his digger on more than one occasion! Everybody needs a Gomer in their life. When he confronted a killer in Lamp of the Wicked, I nearly had a panic attack.

The plots are labyrinthine with endless depths, which is why you can read them over and over again and find new strands that you didn’t see before. They deal with the depths of human nature in all its perversity, and the thread running through all of them is how belief affects human behaviour. Rickman portrays Christianity and Paganism with a real understanding, showing how belief can be both a strength and a weakness, a temptation to evil and a call to compassion. They are anything but sensationalist, treating religion with respect but at the same time exposing the hypocrisy and corruption that can lurk in the heart of any institution or individual.

Phil Rickman’s stories are intelligent and thought-provoking, as well as gripping, shocking and downright addictive. Both the sense of place and character in this series are so strong, it’s not surprising that his fans are so obsessive. He’s a fantastic writer and this series is exceptional – he’s made the cross-genre of supernatural crime entirely his own, and done it with both seriousness and style.

So – to the adaptation of the second novel in the series, Midwinter of the Spirit, which has just finished on ITV. Did it work? I agree with Phil here – a resounding yes.Midwinter

By its very nature a TV adaptation does adapt – and by that read change – a novel. It becomes the interpretation of a story by a new writer, in this case Stephen Volk. It’s never going to by a scene by scene, line by line, literal transcription of a novel into a visual form. What a good adaptation does, is take the essence of a story, re-work it into a new structure that fits a different, episodic, format, and hopefully give it a new life that can be enjoyed by those who both have read the book, and those who haven’t. There are constraints – of timing, budget – and these will affect how large the cast of characters can be, and which elements of the story are left out or reduced. It becomes a distinct piece of creation in its own right – a scion, related but independent. And in my opinion, Stephen Volk did a fantastic job, moulding Rickman’s original material into a gripping drama that captured the spirit of the novel whilst adding intriguing new layers.

David Threlfall as Huw Owen: he simply nailed it – took the character and embodied him fully. In the early scenes he was quite ambiguous – is he on Merrily’s side or not? And this reflects the novel, where the reader isn’t sure who is Merrily’s true ally, Huw or the Bishop.

Anna Maxwell Martin as Merrily was brilliant. She came across as nice but with an edge – she fights back, not in fact the “poodle” that others may think her to be. Her distress as the story unfolds is mesmerising – in the fight scene with Jane in episode two, when she falls to the floor moaning in distress, I felt it. Really felt it. A TV programme can’t get inside the heads of the characters in the same way as a novel, but the whole relationship with her daughter, Merrily’s whole back story, was communicated by the intensity of Anna’s performance.

Lol was re-imagined as a social worker, which makes perfect sense – in the book Lol trained in psychotherapy after his own experiences of the psychiatric system, and in Midwinter is looking after the disturbed Katherine Moon at the request of his psychiatrist, Dick Lyden. Making him a social worker meant that this complicated plot line could be simplified, and allowed Lol to be positioned both as someone who cares and tries to help but also has a legitimate role in the action. Random musician, to a new audience, just wouldn’t work in this regard. Lol is the character that I’ve struggled most to visualise in the novels, but Ben Bailey Smith captured his gentleness, his slight awkwardness, and his determination to do the right thing perfectly (and I think I’m just a little bit in love).

Nicholas Pinnock’s performance as Bishop Mick Hunter was intriguing. Knowing how the story pans out, I was disturbed to find myself really liking him in episode one. And the kiss in episode two…. now that made my skin crawl. But it could so easily be the start of a forbidden romance, and Merrily’s reaction – emotionless, numb – was spot on. Is it abusive, or not? Is she attracted to him? So wonderfully ambiguous. And in the finale, as Mick shows his true self, Pinnock was stunning. I don’t think I dared take a breath at all during that scene on the roof….

Cutting out the Katherine Moon / Dinedor Hill storyline allowed Volk to add an interesting touch of his own. Rowenna becomes the daughter of Denzil Joy, abused by the satanic group (there was no child abuse in the novel) and returning to Herefordshire to bear witness to her father’s death. The family dynamic is disturbed indeed, and contrasts with the dynamic of the Watkins’ family. Denzil and Sean are both dead, and both daughters grieve, while both mothers try to protect their daughters. Rowenna’s “grooming” of Jane becomes even more insidious in this scenario – persuading Jane to reject her mother as she has done, but ultimately preparing to kill Jane as a sacrifice to her father (therefore killing the last bit of innocence and love in herself). Psychologically, it’s fascinating. Merrily’s confrontation with Rowenna, preaching love and ultimately comforting her, worked really well for me in this reimagining of Rowenna’s character. Merrily is the mother Rowenna longs for, hates Jane for having and so tries to destroy their relationship (evil is that simple, so everyday); and Merrily’s compassion is real, showing how love is a more powerful force. It says everything about Merrily that she hugs Rowenna at the end. Leila Mimmack (Rowenna) is definitely an actress to keep an eye on – she had just the right amount of fragility.

Siobhan Finneran as Angela Purefoy is great, oozing malevolence through her glamour. You just know she’s up to no good even though she’s so plausible – of course Jane is taken in by her. As the “other mother” she is both nurturing, alluring and deceitful; a contrast to the mothering expressed by Merrily, who is human in her mistakes. Sally Messham as Jane, a character in the novels that I really identify with, was spot on. Her portrayal of teenage rebellion was utterly believable. As Volk foregrounds the mother-daughter relationship, the multiplicity of these relationships, what makes and what breaks them, is what drives the story onwards. It is the mother that is important here – not the father, not Merrily’s God.

The supernatural elements of Rickman’s books are always quite ambiguous – is it really happening, or is it in the characters’ heads? I think this ambiguity translated well to the screen on the whole. The scritch-scratch scene was genuinely disturbing – I actually flinched, and gripped the arm of my chair. Yet as in the book, it’s such a small movement, so unremarkable by itself. That’s very effective horror – something small but with such impact. Is it a psychic attack, or is Merrily imagining the whole thing? Denzil Joy only ever appears to Merrily, and only when she’s praying; however Episode 2’s cliffhanger (perfect at ensuring the audience will be tuning in the following week) is the only time it hits a slightly off note for me, as the point-of-view feels more that of the audience, rather than Merrily. And it isn’t picked up at the start of Episode 3, which I felt may disappoint some viewers.

So is it clichéd view of good versus evil, of Christianity versus Satanism? There isn’t time in the TV series to provide a nuanced view of different belief systems. But it never infers that paganism equates to Satanism – the bad guys are what they are. In the novel Jane’s quest for an alternative spirituality leads her to the Pod – a vague grouping of women who practice alternative spiritual practices, which is how she meets Angela, although Angela is not a member of the group as such. The novel never really explores paganism – that comes in the first novel, Wine of Angels, through the character of Lucy Devenish, and the third novel, A Crown of Lights, with the characters of Betty and Robin Thorogood, whom Merrily comes to defend and befriend. So for me it’s a non-issue; people will assume what they assume.

My only other comments are that I would have loved more scenes with Annie Howe and Frannie Bliss (Kate Dickie and Simon Trinder) as they are such crucial characters in the series, and more exploration of how and why Bishop Mick became one of the bad guys. I felt perhaps that the casual viewer might have been a little confused by the last episode, as so much happened. But Stephen Volk did a fantastic job of creating a spooky, thought-provoking drama and the cast were all superb. It’s not easy adapting a novel of such complexity into two and half hours of TV, and he really captured the spirit of Rickman’s world. Well done to everyone involved.

The DVD of Midwinter is out on 2nd November. Phil Rickman’s new novel, Friends of the Dusk, is published on 3rd December, and he promises some fallout from the events in Midwinter of the Spirit. My phone will be off the hook for that week.

Call Gomer Parry Plant Hire. I’m moving to the Borders as fast as I can!

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review

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Abuse, Child Abuse, Crime, Psychological Thriller, Sex

Yes, do take a second glance at the cover! Very clever indeed, and a strikingly simple image which is oddly chilling. I think that this is one of the most uncomfortable books I’ve ever read. It’s amazing, hooking you from the first paragraph with horrified fascination, and unfurls like a poisonous spider about to devour its prey.

Celeste is a beautiful woman, married to a firefighter, and intensely frustrated. She’s only sexually attracted to teenage boys, and working as a teacher, temptation is everywhere. Selecting her victim carefully, she manipulates him into a full sexual relationship, and her obsession soon escalates into something with repercussions even she couldn’t begin to imagine.

This is no Mrs Robinson. Celeste consciously uses society’s double standards and preconceptions about female sexuality to get her own way – she is a predator, not a fantasy. Her sheer callousness is staggering, and it’s this that makes her such a compelling narrator. While you despise her, you have to know how it will all play out – will she be caught, and will justice be done?

It’s very shocking and sexually explicit which makes it a disturbing, uncomfortable read. What motivates such deviancy and sociopathy in a seemingly normal, privileged woman? There aren’t really any answers here, but it certainly does make you think about our societal beliefs in relation to gender and power. It’s a book that haunts you, and next time you read about an older woman seducing a young boy, it will make you question people’s attitudes, and particularly the media. A brave, powerful story, that raises a lot of challenging questions, at the same time as sending a shiver of revulsion down your spine. Recommended. Rating:****

Faber & Faber, 2014, ISBN 9780571303335

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

21 Sunday Sep 2014

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Crime, Murder, Psychological Thriller, Thriller

Last year it seemed like everyone was reading Gone Girl, and I just never caught on. So I thought I’d try Sharp Objects, Flynn’s first novel, before catching up with the rest of the universe. It’s a disturbing read, both in subject matter and in the resonance to relationships many of us have experienced in the real world.

Camille is a journalist assigned to cover the case of a second missing girl in her home town in backwater Missouri, sent because her boss thinks her local knowledge will be useful. But Camille detests her home, and her relationship with her family is fractured beyond repair. On her return she realises that she is still the outsider – while everyone else closes ranks and turns blind eyes to the secrets that haunt the town. As Camille becomes embroiled in a complex relationship with the investigating detective, Richard, she discovers that to find justice for the missing (and murdered) girls she has to blow her own life apart.

The crux of this book is the potentially poisonous nature of relationships between women, and it doesn’t make for comfortable reading. From the insidious gossip that characterises peer groups, to the disturbed behaviour that can evolve between mothers and daughters, this is an unflinching expose of the worst aspects of female nature. I saw the twist coming but it was no less hard-hitting for that; this tortured narrator with her own faults is compulsively readable, and her tragedy lingers in the mind long after the book is finished. Excellent, and deservedly award-winning.

Rating:****

Phoenix, 2007, ISBN 9780753822210

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review

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Crime, Psychological Thriller, Thriller

This was a total “keep-me-riveted-to-my-seat” thriller! And the secret is that the central character, Lisa Kallisto, is so utterly plausible. She’s everywoman – it’s impossible not to relate to her, as she juggles work, marriage and motherhood, not entirely successfully. And meanwhile she envies women like Kate Riverty, who seem to manage everything so effortlessly, and still manage to be glamorous and sophisticated.

And then the unthinkable happens – Lisa takes her eye off the ball, and Kate’s teenage daughter Lucinda goes missing on her watch. How do you tell your best friend you’re responsible?

Lisa’s guilt is palpable as she desperately to make amends. It could happen to anyone, and that’s so terrifying – life can implode without warning. But the more Lisa tries to pick up the pieces, the more the life of her friend Kate shatters in ever smaller fragments. And meanwhile, there’s a predator on the prowl….

The denoument of this novel is brilliant and not at all what I was expecting. There are red herrings galore, and lots of moral murkiness to wallow in. And the perspective of the abductor adds a level of terror that mixes with the ordinariness of the other character’s lives to make it even more chilling and realistic. We never know who people are truly thinking, so how can we trust anyone? How many liars and abusers hide in plain sight?

A gripping, thought-provoking and disturbing story. Recommended! Rating: ****

Corgi, 2014, ISBN 9780552169196

The Carrier by Sophie Hannah

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review

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Tags

Abuse, Crime, Murder, Psychological Thriller, Relationships, Thriller

This is a really tricky one to review. I usually love Hannah’s books – they’re properly riveting, and shocking, and uncomfortable. The Carrier is definitely uncomfortable, but I can’t say I enjoyed that feeling this time. And looking at the reviews on Amazon, it seems to have similarly divided other fans.

Gaby is a wealthy businesswoman who ends up sharing a bedroom with gobby Lauren when her flight home from Germany is cancelled. Lauren is hysterical – revealing that an innocent man is about to go to prison for murder – and it just happens that that man is Tim Breary, Gaby’s ex-lover. Gaby determines to help him clear his name…

Without giving the plot away, this novel is about ethics in relationships. None of the characters are remotely likeable – not even the police officers, who are far more philosophical than normal detectives. Reading it made me frustrated as I couldn’t care about anyone enough to be on their side. But having mulled it over for a few days, I think that may have been Hannah’s whole point. The ending is a shock, and really made me think, and that I didn’t like the main protagonists made it have more of an impact. What is abuse within a relationship, and where is the “line”? What could you tolerate? What extremes would you go to? No one is innocent in The Carrier, and Hannah’s depiction of various types of abuse is actually deft and sensitive. While she completely overturns your expectations, she’s challenging you to stop thinking in a simplistic way. Relationships are torture, abuse isn’t always visible, and the innocent may be guilty,as the guilty are innocent. Complex and ultimately disturbing, this is one that’s going to stay with me for a long time.

Hodder, 2013, ISBN 9780340980743

In Too Deep by Bea Davenport

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

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Crime, Domestic Violence, Marriage, Psychological Thriller, Relationships, Thriller

In Too Deep is a compulsive psychological thriller which kept me gripped throughout. It’s told by Maura, who’s run away from her life as wife and mother after the death of her best friend Kim, for which she feels responsible. But why?

As the story unfolds we learn that Maura’s perfect life in a small village was disrupted by the arrival of local reporter Kim – glamorous, sophisticated, predatory and very, very sharp. The most obvious story is that Kim would steal Maura’s husband Nick like a cuckoo in the nest; but this is not what happens, in a refreshing twist. Instead the two women form an unlikely but genuine friendship, in the face of hostility from the locals and particularly from Nick. Kim’s cynical attitude towards men is the only thing that naive Maura finds difficult to contend with, as she is so happily married; but Kim has already spotted Nick as the monster he really is. As the villagers’ tolerance of Kim reaches breaking point, Maura finds that her marriage is under pressure, and Nick’s response is to become violent. Before long, Kim is dead and Maura is in hiding. But a journalist is on her tail, determined to discover the truth…

The slow descent of Maura and Nick’s marriage into domestic violence is chilling and all too plausible; I often felt my insides clenching with the realistic horror of it. The friendship between the two women is also portrayed very convincingly, as you can both see the flaws in their relationship and the genuine alliance and mutual respect of two people who don’t quite fit. Kim’s influence on Maura comes across as a real liberation from a stultifying life, and the vile locals are truly worth hating. After reading this novel, I felt that perhaps Maura actions towards the end of the novel were slightly jarring, but women in abusive relationships are often forced to make difficult choices so maybe it just didn’t sit quite right for me. But ultimately this didn’t impact on my experience of the story, and I was gripped throughout, wanting justice for both women.

This is Bea Davenport’s first adult novel and it shows real promise; if you enjoy Sophie Hannah’s stories, definitely give this one a try! ***

Legend Press, 2013, ISBN 9781909395299

A bit of light reading and some heavy weeding…

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Apocalyptic Fiction, Children's fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Humour, Psychological Thriller, Science Fiction

Well the blog has taken a back seat for a while as the summer ramped up… I’ve been juggling some major garden renovation with allotmenting, which has kept me outside in the sun far too much! I can advise that trying to grow a lawn from seed in the hottest few weeks of the year is mission impossible, and trying to not get evicted from the allotments is a recipe for a bad back, and very nearly a trip to casualty, as the garden fork went straight through my shoe and miraculously, in between my toes…. But I have fitted in some reading and I have a bumper crop of strawberries, so a successful summer!

My Allotment

I tried a bit of sci-fi first, The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Corgi, ISBN 9780552164085). It’s an intriguing idea – an infinity of parallel worlds which you can step into with the aid of a makeshift machine, and the consequences of a mass exodus from Earth, with a billion different human societies being set up. Add to this a sentient computer in the form of a vending machine, and strange creatures that appear to be migrating across the worlds, running away from something, and you have a humorous and imaginative tale. I did however start to lose interest towards the end which was a shame, and I’m not sure I’ll be picking up the sequel.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9780857207258) grabbed my attention much more. It’s the story of a very slow apocalypse told by 11-year-old Julia. The rotation of the Earth has started to slow and the days are getting longer. At first it’s exciting, but eventually society begins to fracture, and people become either real-timers – attempting to live according to their Circadian rhythms – or follow the Government directive of adhering to the 24-hour clock. The disintegration of life as we know it is writ on a very small and human level; there’s no horror here, just the pain of ordinary existence slowly being taken out of the individual’s control. Very powerful and thought-provoking, and a different kind of apocalypse indeed.

I finally decided to tackle Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, ISBN 9780007230204) on my Kindle whilst on holiday. In case you’ve been on Mars, it’s a tale of the Tudors told from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. It was very interesting but with a large cast of characters I never really engaged with it to the depth I’d hoped to. I think it may be a book I’ll revisit one day so I’ll say no more at this point.

I was quite impressed with Hollow Earth by John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman (Buster Books, ISBN 9781907151644); this children’s fantasy had some good scary moments and John has clearly been paying attention to what children love in Doctor Who. Two siblings have the ability to manipulate reality through drawing – but those who wish to bind these powers are after them, and the monsters of Hollow Earth are straining to be unleashed… Good fun.

One story that really gripped me was The Magpies by Mark Edwards (CreateSpace, ISBN 9781483911892). This self-published story is really powerful, telling a tale of neighbourly aggravation that goes way beyond the usual arguments about boundaries and barbecues. Jamie and Kirsty move into their dream flat and are welcomed by downstairs neighbours Chris and Lucy. But soon the neighbours are complaining about noise, sending threatening letters and taping the couple in their bedroom. As the campaign gets more and more extreme, Jamie and Kirsty’s relationship comes under increasing pressure, leading to a shocking finale. Very tense and for anyone who’s experienced problem neighbours, frighteningly plausible… Good stuff.

Okay, back to the allotment for now!

 

Little Face by Sophie Hannah

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Anniseed in Book Review

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Crime, Families, Psychological Thriller, Thriller

Reproduced with kind permission of Hodder

Reproduced with kind permission of Hodder

“It’s every mother’s nightmare…” says the cover, and it’s certainly a terrifying scenario. New mum Alice pops out alone for the first time since her daughter’s birth, but when she returns she is convinced the baby her husband David is looking after is a different child. Hysterical, no one believes her, but policeman Simon isn’t so sure that she’s lying…. Is Alice suffering from post-natal depression, or has someone switched babies? And if so, why?

This story really reeled me in. It’s a crazy (and very unsettling) premise but with its cast of oddly unlikeable characters it’s hard to determine who is actually telling the truth, and even harder to work out which direction the story will take, which kept me gripped throughout. Alice is a frustrating narrator – you’re instinctively sympathetic to her plight at the same time you have doubts about her sanity, and frustration with her passivity in the face of her mother-in-law’s bullying. Simon, her potential hero, is a right oddity to say the least. And Alice’s husband David is just vile. His treatment of Alice made my flesh crawl. But it’s his mother Vivienne who is truly a monster, and she is mystery at the heart of the story. Is she trying to keep everything from falling apart along with Alice’s sanity, or is she manipulating the whole situation for her own ends? Just what on earth is going on in the heart of this family? And who – and where – is baby Florence?

Little Face is a clever psychological thriller – the twists and turns are well executed and I didn’t see it coming, which is testament to Hannah’s confident storytelling. It’s (hopefully) not a likely situation to happen, but it’s a convincingly intense read with a satisfying resolution which I can imagine would make an excellent TV drama. Rating: ***

Hodder, 2006, ISBN 9780340840320

 

 

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The Tangled Leaves of Anniseed

Welcome to the world of Anniseed, bibliofiend and librarian, chaos gardener and allotmenteer, who sometimes finds caterpillars in her hair. This is my blog – what I’m reading and what I think about it, plus commentary on the world of books, and occasional rambles into the garden.

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