Fetch Your Copy Long Lankin Designed By Lindsey Barraclough Shared As Kindle
Lankin by Lindsay Barraclough The Bodley HeadUK/Candlewick is an excellent first novel initially published in the UKand marketed as a young adult novel.
Although two out of the three points of view are childrens this book should have great appeal to readers of any age.
In the lates, two young sisters from London are sent to stay with their great aunt in a small isolated village in rural England.
Their aunt is a strange one and strict, The house in which they stay is haunted, as are the grounds around it, The two children narrators overhear adult conversations and because it takes them longer to comprehend whats going on than the reader we fear for them.
Theres a curse, a witch, ghosts, a bog that can swallow a body without a trace, The fear creeps up on the reader slowly yet relentlessly but its the individual voices of each character that makes this novel of fear and desperation so stand out.
The last fifty pages are heartgrabbing,.
This Long Lankin's atmospheric writing only makes the creep factor in the end that much more powerful, For a long time, I was taken with the setting itself and thought it wouldn't deliver on the fear factor because atpages I was still unsure exactly what would be the scary part since I knew what was coming but oh, those lastpages pulled it out.
My heart definitely raced a bit,
Cora and her sister Mimi are sent to live with their great Aunt Ida while their dad takes care of some business.
Their mom's sick something that's only ever talked about peripherally, but good readers will figure it out and understand the implications of sooner than the girls will.
Despite knowing that bad things have happened to children under the care of Ida, there aren't other choices for the girls' supervision.
It is then that the spirits rise, When things start to appear, When cave bestiam starts showing up everywhere for someone who knows Latin, all of the Latin infused in here was a trip, but those who don't know it will learn it right along with Cora and Roger.
The house they're in is sweltering, all of the windows and doors sealed and locked tight so they're unable to be opened.
Because when they're opened, bad things happen,
Bad things are happening already, Back story is woven skillfully into the tale, and while it verges on infodumping periodically, it's absolutely necessary and essential to moving the story along.
This book is almostpages, but I read it almost entirely in one sitting, The pacing is great, and those lengthier pieces do not drag, And oh, does it make the pay off in the end worthwhile, I was terrified that Talking about how the horror and spirits unfold would ruin the plot, but it has to do with the church, with the notion of peace and rest, with rituals and putting the dead into a final rest.
The pieces are all there for the reader to put together but they aren't handed over to us, They aren't obvious.
While I thought the characters were good, I was especially taken with Aunt Ida, She's cold. She's grieving. She's angry. And she's downright mean and nasty at times, Except she has to be, She's had a crap lot in life, and she carries the hurt with her, But there is a huge insight into her character through the kids, and it was when that shift happened that I knew how I wanted the story to end.
The only things that didn't work for me here were secondary things: there was a bit of a hint about Aunt Ida's marriage and former relationship that didn't work for me it's dropped in but never pursued when in reality, it could have not been there at all and at times, it was hard to keep all of the secondary characters apart.
But they're minor quibbles in the face of an incredibly successful story, I'm impressed as hell this is Barraclough's first novel,
The writing and marshy/English countryside setting reminded me a lot of Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black.
" Oh how I want more books like this, especially in YA,
If you like horror/chilling/creepy stories, especially those that tackle the spiritual world/haunted houses, this is a winner.
There's a little bit of gore but not too much, This plays much more into psychological fear than physical fear, even though there is definitely a physical threat in here.
Full review here: sitelink stackedbooks. org/l The next book off of the sitelinkBookRiot'sMustRead Contemporary Horror Novels list,
Young sisters Cora and Mimi are sent to stay with their eccentricass aunt who lives in an isolated village in godknowswhere.
They're, of course, miserable, which isn't helped by the fact that their aunt, again, is eccentric and weird, They do befriend a couple village boys, Roger and Peter, so things aren't all that bad after a while,
But some strange shit is happening in this village of godknowswhatever, The children are on a mission to figure things out but not surprisingly they get in over their heads very quickly as tends to happen when strange shit is happening in isolated villages.
This is a fine book, but I didn't love it, I've been reading a lot of books lately where the perspectives change, and in this one, the perspectives changes pretty frequently between the children and the aunt.
I wasn't turned off by that, per se, but it was hard to keep track after a while because, in my opinion, there wasn't a lot of differentiation between the ways the children, especially, spoke or thought.
Not to mention I had a hard time really seeing the characters, Considering the amount of time Barraclough spent with descriptions of setting and environment, and considering how well she managed that, I would have liked a bit more description of the characters themselves particularly the children.
It takes a lot to scare me when I'm reading horror books which is why I've been reading through horror genre lists like no one's business lately, and I won't say this one scared me either.
But there were moments that made me uncomfortable because Barraclough really nailed what it is like as a child to deal with creepiness.
If she meant to do me harm, she could have done it already come up behind me in the dark.Long Lankin himself is, . . well, I don't want to spoil too much, But Long Lankin ranks high on the creep factor in my opinion, It was hard for me to separate him from Slender Man which is more my fault than anything else, Once I had the idea of that in my mind, I just couldn't shake it,
I swallow, pull myself away from the wall, stretch out my hand, and lift the latch again, I can hear my heart thudding in my chest and am barely able to place one foot in front of the other as I move towards the doorway in the corner once more.
When I reach it, I hold my breath and slowly peer around the frame,
A lightning bolt cracks, and the room flashes with light, There is nobody there.
p
Previous read on the horror list I'm reading through: sitelinkBroken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
Next up on the horror list: sitelinkThe Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron The story begins great with a scary almost magical feel,young girls are dropped off at a relatives dilapidated mansion and soon are faced with a haunted house and an evil spirit that steals children.
The characters are interesting but the writing style is distracting, The story became very detailed about everyday life and the pace much too slow to maintain a scary atmosphere throughout until the very end when the evil spirit finally appears.
This is the best dark fiction I have read so far this year,
While I was reading it, I compared it to the Stephen King novel, It, as both books had a very similar theme.
I thought that this book was better,
Why Because it was strictly British with no boomercentric pop culture references even though these two novels are set in the same time period.
Also, we don't delve into the details of the characters lives and learn a lot of personal things that have nothing to do with the story.
The monster is better, I really loved the Beowulf reference during the final battle with Long Lankin,
I am just a sucker for a novel with a moldering old manor house, a Domesday Book family with a curse and an ancient monster out of legend.
You just can't get much better than that,
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a traditional, creepy ghost story,
Pet Lover's Advisory: SPOILER!
A good dog dies a brave death in this story, The death is not a gratuitous manipulation of the reader's emotions, but integral to the story, Not bloody, gory, disgusting, but he does die, . . so be warned! Long Lankin is a tale that is quite slow paced, but in such a way that makes you fall addicted to the story.
Its depictions of the creepy atmosphere, bloodcurling ghostly creatures, and fascinating history leave you absolutely glued to its pages, not to mention chilled to the bone!
Set in the's, Long Lankin brings us to a time where WWwas just over and poverty was very much a reality.
Electricity was scarce, so were methods of communication, With this setting, we've got just a dash of dialect that makes the dialogue incredibly compelling it gives the voices a genuinely convincing feel along with aiding the atmospheric countryside vibe to come to life.
Our two main characters, Cora and Roger, both have legitimate teenage personalities, Their narrations are realistic, animating this story from both of their perspectives, The regular POV switches are very well managed throughout the book the story move swiftly regardless of its slowish pace, in addition to keeping our curiosity and eagerness alive.
Aunt Ida's perspective also makes sporadic appearances, bringing us into the mind of this cold, angry old woman who has incredible depth to her character.
No matter how awful she seems, you will be taken by her, I guarantee it!
" Then, among the tombstones, out of the air, small figures appear.
They are all the size of little children, but their colourless faces are old and rotten, like the faces of the dead, their eyes nothing more than black holes, their hair grizzled and sparse.
"
Aside from the character voices, the descriptions in the book are a work of art, The gloominess of the town, the forsaken church, Auntie Ida's decaying, creaky old home, and best of all: the apparitions ghosts/horrific children freak me OUT! it's all so brilliantly enticing: vivid and ominous.
It's more than enough to induce chills, Once you get close to the ending, especially, I would even consider terrifying,
We get this mystery solved in tiny bits and pieces, mostly from old research and townsfolk, I constantly wanted to know more, yet too caught up in the book to make up my own theories, This caused the actual story to remain a mystery until the very end, It's not the type of plot you can really guess, even if you try, however, It's unique, encompassing witchcraft, dark legends, engrossing history, and folklore, In fact, as seen along with the book trailer, I wasn't familiar with the Long Lankin song before it's "inspired by a haunting folk song about murder, witchcraft and revenge.
" This all comes to a close a bit too narrow for my taste, Not that I didn't like the ending it's shuddersome with plenty of suspense and a good completion, BUT, I will admit that I was secretly hoping for a shocking revelation or disturbing twist that left me breathless, so the neat ending is a little underwhelming in that sense.
I do blame this on my masochistic horror loving taste,
Haunting and tensionfilled, Long Lankin is a gripping read that you absolutely must read if you love Gothic horror novels.
Expect a slow, but terrific story that brings together excellent writing, amazingly lively characters and a spinechilling tale,
For more of my reviews, visit my blog at sitelinkXpresso Reads sitelink Long Lankin was a uniquely creepy read and one of the most original YA novels I have ever read.
It is a stunning debut novel,
Long Lankin is a story about two sisters who are sent to their Great Aunt's to live, At first it seems like a story which is quite sad a bit of a comment on th social situation the children have found themselves to be in, in thes but as the story develops it becomes so much more.
It is told in first person and the person narrating chops and changes through the story between the the main characters.
I found it a little confusing at first but soon grasped all the differing characters in my head enough to keep up.
It wouldn't be one of my reviews if I didn't say how much I loved the glimpse into the time period of thes and how much everyday life contrasts with ours today.
I loved the voice of the main character Cora, I loved how she interacted with her younger sister and how she dealt with the new life she had been thrown into and loved following her as she began to unravel the mystery surrounding Long Lankin.
As the story progresses you start to get the idea that all is not well in the household and especially when Cora's great Aunt starts to behave and react to situations in peculiar ways.
There are some really weird scenes where you are not sure if the main characters are seeing things or if they are actually there.
I was warned this book was creepy but really didn't think it would be that creepy from the first half.
I was really enjoying it but not creeped out, However in the lastpages or so everything kicked off and it changed the whole tone of the book, It was definately the creepiest YA I think I've ever read and totally unputdownable, I ended up laying in bed reading late into the night because I needed to know what happened this is not advisable practice if you have a vivid imagination and want to be able to sleep afterwards.
The scenes with Long Lankin himself in were really creepy and those final few scenes were incredibly fast paced and I ended the book in a semi stunned state about what had happened!
All in all an awesome debut novel from an author I am sure we will start to hear loads about in the future.
An awesome host of characters and geniunely creepy read!,