Fir, by Sharon Gosling

This book is a brilliant, YA combination of Stephen King's The Shining meets the terrifying, snowy, forest-gonna-get-you atmosphere of Until Dawn meets the houses have memories and will show you what they know of James Herbert's The Secret of Crickley Hall. But in Sweden, with a frosty side of conservation and Northern mythology thrown in too.

Firstly, the narrator of this book is just right up my street. Surly, un-affectionate, sarcastic- hello Swedish me. I don't think we ever find out the name of the narrator and once you've read this, you'll realise why that's significant and incidentally, super clever...

Anyway- the teen narrator and her parents move from their comfortable urban life in Stockholm to a remote tree plantation out in the far Northern wilderness of Sweden. Bought for a song from the previous owner when he abandoned the enterprise, Mom and Dad Stromberg are determined to make a fresh start in the lumber business. Their daughter is not exactly thrilled by the prospect and resents her parents for uprooting her. Right away, things aren't what they expect. For one there's an expedition of schoolkids out on a conservation trip with a woodsman named Tomas who warns the family off felling the old growth forest. Unmoved, the dad is determined to cut it down- this is a lumber plantation after all. Tomas takes the opportunity to take the Strombergs out into the Firs to show them the ancient woods and to attempt, in a vague, semi-supernatural fashion, to educate these townies about things that they don't understand. Unseasonable quantities of snow start to fall, cutting the Strombergs off from civilisation and forcing Tomas to cut the trip short, leaving the family with the creepy inherited housekeeper Dorothea.

Dorothea was amazing. Wizened, hunched, scuttling around like an omnipotent beetle, she is key to unlocking the plantation's secrets. Thoroughly unpleasant and filled with superstition, the narrator is constantly hindered and sabotaged by Dorothea as she turns detective, attempting to piece together the plantation's recent and more forgotten history- Polaroids in the desk drawers, ledgers in the study. They tell of accidents, fires, mysterious disappearances going back over the decades. Dorothea has been here through it all and must know what's out there.

I loved the atmosphere of the plantation and its surroundings, particularly the forest; it's one part sinister, one part magic and one part self-preservation- it feels like it has the right to protect itself. There is something fascinatingly primeval about old, old woodlands- who knows what forgotten things still linger there. The trees whisper to one another in between the chapters, demanding what is owed them, threatening and waiting. There are shadows in the forest and they are closing in.

I loved the family dynamics of the book- frayed somewhat by the upheaval from the beginning and going downhill from there. Shortly after the narrator starts to think she sees things, wolves, children, moving in the trees- resentment and tension continues to build between her and the parents that don't believe her. Is the isolation getting to them? Or is there really something supernatural in the snow? There's blood and footprints, teeth, claws and a gusty, windy song that seems to stir the branches. The dad tries to blindly continue with his plan, the mum gets more and more manic and deranged, talking to a ghostly boy. It all adds to the horror and unreality, all contributing to the atmosphere, constantly forcing the reader to decide what's real and what isn't. I bloody love an unreliable narrator and a shaky, is-this-the-real-life foundation of a supernatural or maybe not story.

The narrator's story closes with a grim discovery, a narrow escape and all the plantation's secrets exposed- the parents are satisfied that this is a mistake, they're going back to Stockholm and what a stupid idea this all was. But that's not where the book ends. The appendix blows the whole thing wide open- it's a glorious twist at the end that utterly chills the reader and leaves you demanding to know what happened. What happened in the hours after the narrator's story ended? What happened to Dorothea? WAS IT ALL REAL?? I am normally in two minds about open, mysterious endings like this, but Fir left me reeling.

A thoroughly satisfying, creepy, atmospheric chiller for readers that loved Say Her Name by Juno Dawson, haunted house narratives and anything involving obscure mythology and/or the oppressive darkness of the Scandinavian winter. I will definitely be seeking out more of Tiger Stripes' Red Eye chillers and cannot recommend this enough.

Books Read in February

Say Her Name, by James Dawson

A brilliant, spine-chilling take on the Bloody Mary-lives-in-the-mirror legend that is genuinely scary and ridiculously tense. This is the first James Dawson book I've read and I ordered the other two straight away and put the 3rd on pre-order. That's how good it was.

The novel starts 13 years ago with 15 year old Taylor Keane rattling around in her family home- just out of boarding school for the holidays. Alone in the house, she goes to investigate a persistent drip, drip, drip noise in the bathroom and is never seen again.

13 years later, Bobbie Rowe and her prestigious girls' boarding school friends have snuck some local boys in for Halloween and are sharing ghost stories in the hut at the end of the sports field. As ever, the legend of Bloody Mary comes up- they argue about the details, but they know that Mary was once a Piper's Hall lady like them, that she was a weird loner and seeing a boy from the village- and that she killed herself.

Out of her depth with the elite kids of the rich and famous, Bobbie keeps quiet, sticking to best mate Naya, the glamorous American, like glue. Bored by the same old stories and well aware of the illegality of the company, she wants nothing more than to go back to her room and finish off her book. So she's as surprised as anyone when she finds herself volunteering, along with local eye-candy Caine and Naya to prove to mean-girl Sadie that the legend is kid's stuff, nonsense. Saying "Bloody Mary" five times into a mirror, surrounded by candles at midnight cannot possibly summon Mary into the real world. It's kid's stuff.

Needless to say, Mary is very much a reality, leaving threatening notes for her three latest victims, visiting them in dreams, sharing her life and her misery. Haunting them, getting stronger and more dangerous as the days tick by, testing their sanity and their nerve to the limit. Pursued by an anguished and occasionally corporeal spirit, Naya, Bobbie and Caine are embroiled in a furious race against the clock to uncover the secrets surrounding Mary's disappearance in the 1950s in order to set her spirit free and hopefully to avoid meeting the same fate.

James Dawson is a ridiculously talented author- not only does he write realistic teens (more difficult than it seems), but he also treads an unbearably enigmatic line between benevolent misery and malevolent fury when it comes to the character of Mary. Is she a tragic, forsaken victim or a vengeful and merciless killer? The reader knows as much as Bobbie does, as she begins to dig into Mary's past. Her findings get creepier and creepier, and even though the reader is never sure how they should feel about Mary, it's clear she's pretty bloody terrifying.

I loved sassy, carefree Naya, she complimented Bobbie's logical, methodical investigation well. Bobbie and Caine are really relatable, easy to read characters- they're incredibly solid and really believable as regular teens against the world. They're so likable; half resigned to their early demise but still going all out to fight to the end. I liked how they switched between being goofy and flirty, then being annoyed with themselves for flirting in such a life or death crisis...then giggling about it. I loved how normal they were and how realistically they reacted to being in a paranormal, unchartered territory situation. Their dialogue and reactions were absolutely spot on, which I find I always look for in books for teens. When authors understand teens, it really comes across in their writing; their characters don't seem awkward or forced, there's no cringey slang or try-too-hard modernisms. I spend all day every day surrounded by teens so it's easy to catch out teen characters that don't really work.

Say Her Name is a credible combination of The Ring and a traditional ghost story slash detective tale, with added bullying issues, schoolyard politics and position-of-trust abuse thrown in. It's a breathless, tense and brilliantly pacy read that has an absolutely huge appeal. I loved the ending, which I don't want to give away...but the idea that doing the right thing, the thing that anybody in their right mind would consider the noble and brave thing, and it possibly turning out to be horrifically dangerous and wrong is terrifying.

Students ask me for horror books all the time, and much of the time I'm stumped, because they're often not actually anywhere near scary. I think this book is going to be getting checked out a lot in future. I'd definitely recommend it to horror film fans, or readers looking for a good supernatural chill.

The Company of Ghosts, by Berlie Doherty

Talked out of running away from home and a new step-dad, Ellie finds herself agreeing to spend two weeks on a deserted, wild island off the coast of Scotland. Setting off with Morag, a girl she hardly knows from her Orchestra and Morag's family, Ellie is torn between excitement and worrying whether she is intruding.

When circumstances lead to Ellie and George, Morag's brother alighting on the island alone, two strangers begin to become friends. At first Ellie is unimpressed with the corrugated iron cottage, the lack of electricity or running water, the mice, the draughts...but as George shows her the island's secrets and hideaways, the lagoons, lighthouse and smuggler's cave, its wild beauty and mystery cast their spell on her. Before long she is an enamoured with Wild Island as he is. On the second day George nips across to the mainland to pick up supplies. He doesn't come back.

Marooned on the wild and hauntingly beautiful island, Ellie begins to believe she is going mad from loneliness- hearing sounds that aren't there, seeing shadows that can't exist and feeling icy kisses on her sleeping cheeks. For days she puts it down to isolation, tiredness, the wind, the sea...but after a while she cannot hope to ignore the presence of a ghostly young woman who seems to be trying to say something to her.

Ellie feels abandoned by her newly remarried mother and her estranged but beloved father who has moved hundreds of miles away- then she is literally abandoned by the family with whom she is supposed to be going away. I think a lot of readers will be able to relate to Ellie- her grief at the separation of her parents, her struggle to fit into her new life, how much she misses her dad and her frustration at not being able to express herself properly. I think the way that she keeps her head and remains rational, making the best of everything and trying to enjoy her own company are really admirable too.

The segments where Ellie wrote to her dad and drew, sketched and painted the landscapes, her surroundings and all the things she was discovering on her adventure really gave an insight into Ellie's character. She's incredibly brave, firstly, to be able to stare her fear in the face and to quash it by capturing it in paint or ink. She's sensitive and creative and her actions towards the end of the book shows how much she will risk to help someone.

The Company of Ghosts is a really accessible book- I think primary aged kids would even enjoy it. There's something really universal about a good ghost story, and this is full of sadness and intrigue and suspense. Towards the end a dual narrative emerges, the story of the ghost and her tragedy, that winds itself into the present day seamlessly. Also, because the ghost in this book is a tragic, benevolent spirit it removes any real horror from the equation. So no nightmares, no grisly murder victims wanting revenge etc...

It's a well constructed and pleasantly readable book, atmospheric and genuinely chilling in places- the revelation of the ruined shell of the boat, the Spectre  on the previously empty lagoon was brilliant. I liked the characters and the evolving relationship between Ellie and George, and the vivid descriptions of the island and its secrets. It's obviously written by somebody who has quite a mastery of language and plotting...but for me it lacked that little spark of special that makes a Carnegie candidate stand out from the crowd.

The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters

I have finally finished this book! No kidding, it took the best part of a month to read, such was my disengagement with it.

The story starts with the narrator's childhood self being star-struck at the imposingly grand home of the local landed gentry. The impressive Captain Ayres and his handsome wife are handing out medals to the local rustic children on the sweeping lawn of their red-brick estate. The narrator mentions a subsequent tragedy that befalls the Eyres; the loss of their young daughter to illness which causes them afterwards to retire from public life.

Fast forward a decade or three, and the young narrator of humble origin is now the strapping Dr. Faraday, local boy done well and now the area's favourite medical practitioner slash bachelor. A chance call out to Hundreds, the house that so impressed him during his youth, makes him both nostalgic and curious. On his call out to treat a young housemaid, he finds the frail Mrs Ayres is still living there, still handsome despite her age, with her two grown children, born after the death of the first. Caroline is masculine and practical; she wears unbecoming clothes, is no stranger to household chores and spends much of her time trudging around the crumbling estate with her beloved but elderly dog Gyp. We get it; a character in a novel that has dared to be ugly. No need to keep going on about it, narrator. Roderick, the brother, is a disfigured but celebrated ex-serviceman with lingering war wounds and is left the unhappy task of managing the family's increasingly desperate affairs. Dr. Faraday becomes something of a family friend and is frequently up at Hundreds on social visits, taking tea, dispensing advice, wielding his stethoscope.

During one such visit, a party of sorts to cheer up the Ayres' and to throw spinsterish Caroline into the path of the County's eligible males (just like old times), a freak accident occurs that foreshadows the many tragedies that lie in the future of the Ayres and Hundreds. Overnight Hundreds goes from being a somewhat dilapidated relic to a dangerous and malevolent threat to its inhabitants. It's up to Doctor Faraday to keep the Ayres' safe and rational at a time when they think their house wants to drive them away.

I love a good ghost story. I love a good mystery. But the Little Stranger really can't make up its mind what it is, so it kind of dabbles a bit with both, therefore not really pulling either off to anyone's satisfaction. If the supernatural burns, noises, arson attacks, physical assaults and taunts were truly ghostly, the author really failed (for me) to build up any sense of dread, or fear or anything remotely chilling. I found myself simply shrugging off many of what I think were supposed to be key plot points. They just lacked the suspense and the drama of what could have been a terrifyingly tense haunting. The other explanation however; that the slow, persistent torture of the Ayres' by sounds and spooks is perpetrated by a much more corporeal individual is somewhat half arsed, and is kind of thrown in at the end...a sort of "It's a ghost...OR IS IT?!" not-quite-twist. What the author is suggesting makes no sense and doesn't fit in with the events of the plot...It could be a ghost, it could be a person- neither case really makes a particularly persuasive argument.

For a novel of 500 pages, it isn't half a slow burner. We see Dr. Faraday doggedly pursuing Caroline and they spend the novel in a mixture of awkward friendship and a confused, plutonic courtship. Faraday doesn't make a very gentlemanly suitor and seems much more enamoured of the house than his intended. As the house picks off its owners one by one, he stubbornly rationalises the incidents, explaining them away again and again despite the mounting evidence placed in front of him...

Personally, I found the novel to be lacking in plot, short on the chills that it promised and with a dully small cast of uninteresting characters. I can't say I warmed to any of them at all really, and never felt anything for them when they met their various fates. I couldn't muster anything for any of them besides a mild indifference. It's a shame really, as I do really like Waters' style of prose. I love her attention to detail and her ability to find the magic in the mundane. I was just disappointed to find that none of it really mattered in this particular book as the plot and the characters were so weak.