It's 1923 and at Thistlecrook House, a forbidding home on the Scottish border, the roaring twenties seem not to have arrived. But Simon Christie has - a young man who can't believe his luck when he gets a job cataloguing the infamous art collection of the Mordrake family. Yet from the moment he gets off the train at the deserted village station he can't shift a headache and a sense that there's more to the House and its gruesome selection of pictures.
Simon's host is glad of his company, but he gets the feeling the house is not so welcoming. As his questions about the Mordrakes grow, he finds answers in surprising places. But someone is not pleased that old secrets are stirring.
As night falls each evening, and a growing sense of unease roils in the shifting shadows around him, Simon must decide what he can trust and ask if he can believe what he sees in the dusk or if his mind is poisoned by what has happened before in this place between lands, between light and dark.
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It all seemed to happen very quickly after I decided that I should try to find a job. 1
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(@HarperNorthUK, 3 February 2022, ebook, 304 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveInc)
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This is an impressive debut and I look forward to reading the author's next book. I really enjoyed the combination of historical fiction and the supernatural. This book is very atmospheric and unsettling. I enjoyed the fact the supernatural elements are subtle and not in-your-face like modern horror. You know something is off but only a vague notion of what until the last few shocking chapters.
