Our book of the month is Pine by Francine Toon. We give you our Big Review below.
***Our Big Reviews are written from the point of view that you have read the book. If this is not yet you, bookmark the page and come back once you have***
Pine – the blurb
Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she’s gone.
In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren’s mother a decade ago.
Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father’s turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it’s no longer clear who she can trust.
I think we’re alone now
The book starts on Halloween which is pretty much when I started to read it. It was certainly the right time to read as the nights set in and the smell of fireworks hung in the air. Toon brilliantly sets the scene. This is a woman who clearly knows the Highlands, its nature and how a rural community works. The feeling of isolation was really played upon. Yes there was the physical isolation out in the forest but there was also Lauren being singled out by bullies and Niall, alone with his inner turmoil. People seeing Christine then instantly forgetting just added to Lauren’s sense of isolation in her confusion as to what the hell was going on.
Black Magic
I didn’t really expect the tarot, palm reading and spell casting but found that it didn’t put me off in the slightest. I don’t believe in magic yet understood how Lauren, as a child and as a link to her mother could easily be drawn to it. I’m also not sure I was expecting a ghost story, though I knew it was billed as ‘gothic’ and ‘eerie’. I wasn’t scared in reading it at any point but thought it fit quite well in to the story. It could have just been a story about a missing woman, was she murdered? By her husband? But the extra elements in the Highland setting really elevated it. I haven’t read anything like it all year and I really appreciated its uniqueness.
Press Pause
The house very much felt as though it was stuck in the past. Lauren’s mom disappeared and life pressed pause. The TV didn’t get updated, the CD collection remained the same. Even the lipstick she wore hadn’t been thrown away. It very much felt like neither father or daughter could move on.
I loved how Toon gradually worked in the idea Christine was murdered. It genuinely took me a while to work out the woman they picked up on the road was Christine. Ok so she is dead. Then how did she die? Lauren’s dad is clearly struggling, could it be because he murdered her? I was still asking myself these questions until quite late on in the book. The murderer blindsided me. I suspected either Alan or Niall. So kudos to Toon for keeping the story well hidden.
Need to know
Why is it called Pine? What significance was the buzzard that kept appearing? These are the questions I kept mulling over as I was reading. I have a theory or two but would love to hear your thoughts.
The section with Diane and the house was a bit weird but then things were genuinely all over the place by then. It is slightly too trope esque (cabin in the woods, pervading sense of damp) yet this adds to the fact it is a child experiencing these things. As a child would tell a ghost story so they are experiencing one.
It would have been interesting to read about how the community changed towards Lauren and Niall once they had been deemed victims and not suspects. I would also like to have seen Niall get with Kirsty (who clearly has problems in her family and has feelings for Lauren and Niall). Overall I found Pine a very timely read, that I really enjoyed. It’s different, a bit supernatural on the outside, and a cleverly written thriller underneath.
Get Involved
If you would like to get involved with our book of the month try answering our book club questions published every month. Just search in our footnotes section for the ‘Get Involved’ articles. We review a new book every month so keep your eyes peeled for the Lowdown on December’s book of the month soon.