Wakenhyrst

Reviews

Turner

At ten she glimpses the true brutality of her father and the desperation that rattles away inside her poor mother. For such a long time, she has struggled to unravel the subtext to words whispered around her but now she is starting to glimpse the truth, so frightening and brutal in so many ways. Wakenhyrst is an Edwardian gothic horror tale with intensely creepy undertones. She knew his intention that day was murder.

Lynne

In 1913, 16-year-old Maud Stearne watched her father leave the house with an ice-pick and a geological hammer in his hands. The birds and the eels and the wildlife all around her in the fen and the hope of one day sharing their freedom. Maud is a character you can’t help but admire and applaud, her strength, determination and resilience is apparent in every page.

He is fuelled by his own wants and needs, regardless of how they hurt those around him. Having read two of her earlier novels, Dark Matter and Thin Air, I know how wonderfully adept she is at creating a sense of time and place — Wakenhyrst is another fine example of this. When he finds a centuries old painting in the undergrowth near Wake’s End, his grasp on reality falters. He is also a tyrant.

Cruel, malicious and wicked. Her single consolation is the natural world. I hated Edward for his cruelty and arrogance.

Edward Sterne, her father, is a historian and scholar, deeply religious and devoted to his beliefs. Wakenhyrst buzzes with tension and atmosphere.