This touches into the supernatural on other levels and shows you the slow and dark descent into the human mind. This is a gothic ghost story which is a different type of scary, but it is also more than that. If you are looking for an in your face and make you jump ghost story this isn't it. The character's of Wakenhyrst are vivid and you really connect to them. Michelle Paver does a fantastic job with world building and weaving suspense. I usually don't like slow burn books as they tend to sometimes drag and one loses interest, but Wakenhyrst sucks you in and holds you tight. The first part should have been re-recordedĪ slow burn with so many twists and turns! Quite dreadful, but it did improve and quieten down. The start was alarmingly bad, as though it was a reading of a spooky story for 5 year-olds. The story is certainly packed and absorbing but suffers from having no likeable characters. The other impressive presence in the story is the Fens themselves with their oppressive and sinister miasma and dark writhing eels. Maud grows to be her father's loathed amenuensis - and also to read her father's journals which detail not only his constant 'connections' with the uppity servant girl, but also his obsession with devils,as he slides into madness. Maud's beloved Maman survived a catalogue of 'chamberpots of blood', but died giving birth to dead Rosie. The main character is Maud, Edward's slighted and insulted daughter, the only child along with much younger Felix. The story set in the Norfolk fens fill in the why.

In 1913 the obsessive historian Edward Stearn killed a man with a pick axe in a random, bizarre and horrific attack, so we know WHO. Michele Paver excels at creating intriguing & chilling stories - Thin Air is well worth downloading.

Wakenhyrst by michelle paver