A Times Best Book of 2019. 'Paver is one of Britain's modern greats. This sinister, gothic chiller shows why' BIG ISSUE, Books of the Year 2019. "Something has been let loose..."
In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father.
When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened.
Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.
Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free by the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air. Wakenhyrst is an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry.
Baaah. This turned into an incredibly cliched and boring story at around the 20% mark. Even tho the story picks up pace a little after we get to the father's journal, it is still an incredibly annoying and boring story with none of the characters being really interesting.
Is this meant to be YA? That's what it reads like to me, and that really is not a good thing.
