Review - Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver

Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver

My thoughts:

Here's a lovely gothic style historical novel to tempt you to stay up late reading under the covers. It's not a horror story as such but a creepy tale of madness and loneliness.

I find the cover quite enticing with the silhouette of a Magpie (Oh, Chatterpie!!) and are those drops of blood?

Wakenhyrst is the story of a young woman Maud, brought up by her bullying father in a large old house around the turn of the 20th century, after the death of her mother in bloody childbirth. Maud is a very lonely young woman, forced to grow up quickly, she has few real friends. An intelligent young woman, when intelligence is the province of the male members of a family line, this does her few favours, apart from earning her a little grudging respect from the unpleasant and unpredictable father she nevertheless longs to impress.

He "allows" her the doubtful privilege of transcribing his historical research into local lore and a book about a woman thought to be possessed he becomes fixated on after finding part of an old painting belonging to the local church known as a doom.

He grows fixated and fearful and Maud in turn begins to fear for his sanity and possibly her own. Her only companions are the household servants, (one of whom she longs to be closer to and one who betrays her) and a bird she rescues and grows to love. She is forced to witness her Father growing increasingly more unpredictable and when she discovers his journal what she reads there makes her blood run cold.

It's a creepingly sinister tale, with a real twist in the tail I didn't see coming and a haunting sadness that had a lump in my throat. The story is told retrospectively by a researcher who comes to interview Maud in her old age and in this it reminded me of The Thirteenth Tale somewhat, it also has overtones of The Essex Serpent.

If you liked either of these books you will most probably enjoy Wakenhryst immensely as did I. It's a very credible and atmospheric coming of age story with a very dark core. I was rooting for Maud all the way, loathed her father and loved the watery fenland location its set in.

The Blurb

1906: A large manor house, Wake's End, sits on the edge of a bleak Fen, just outside the town of Wakenhyrst. It is the home of Edmund Stearn and his family – a historian, scholar and land-owner, he's an upstanding member of the local community. But all is not well at Wake's End. Edmund dominates his family tyrannically, in particular daughter Maud. When Maud's mother dies in childbirth and she's left alone with her strict, disciplinarian father, Maud's isolation drives her to her father's study, where she happens upon his diary.

During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers its actually a painting, a 'doom', taken from the church. It's horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite his historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows closed. And when he lies awake at night, he hears a scratching sound – like claws on the wooden floor...

Wakenhyrst is a terrifying ghost story, an atmospheric slice of gothic, a brilliant exploration of the boundaries between the real and the supernatural, and a descent into the mind of a psychopath.