Girl by Edna O’Brien

Edna O’Brien travelled to Nigeria, and did a great amount of research into the abduction of the girls from their school, by Boko Haram, and this is the fictional result. We experience the extraordinary atrocities with Maryam, and her struggles to find a place for herself and her baby, once they escape. I found it hard going, as it was so horrific, and there was very little hope, even once they were free. The writing style was interesting, dispassionate, spare, and as a result it wasn’t greatly affecting, but it will stay with me.

We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson

A clever, disturbingly creepy story of two sisters, Constance and Merricat, living in a big house with their uncle, after Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family. When their cousin, Charles, arrives, he threatens their carefully maintained way of life. It has a magical feel, quite beautiful, with hints of menace and uncertainty.

The nesting by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

Lexi accepts a job as a nanny for a family who have lost their mother under a false name. The family is building a summer house in Norway. Lexi soon becomes attached in the grieving children and is determined to keep them safe. But not is all as it seems. The Norwegian landscape was a highlight for me in this tale. It was part a cautionary environmental tale, part myth and part gothic mystery. If you leave your sensible mind behind you will get caught up in the story and enjoy the ride.

The bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett

This was a crazy read. Eleanor moves to Talbingo to take up a teaching job and things go haywire. The story started with humour and then just went weird. There is a lot of swearing. The horror fell short, I think because Eleanor was portrayed as off balance before she arrived in the mountains – so was it creepy because of what was happening or was it all in Eleanor’s head. Most of the situations were far fetched but it did make me want to see how the story ended.

Ninth house by Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy (Alex) Stern survives an horrific crime, and is offered a free place at Yale because of her rare ability to see Greys (ghosts). She is brought in to be part of the house of Lethe, which monitors the activities of the eight powerful, secret societies. She was always going to struggle, after her misspent youth, but finds more drama than anyone expected. It took me a while to get into this, perhaps because I have recently read a lot of beautiful/luminous/funny fantasy, and this is very dark, but it got more and more exciting, and I stayed up way too late to finish it. It has fantasy, horror, mystery, and thriller elements, a great college setting, and characters I came to care about. I will be back for the next in the series.

Music and malice in Hurricane Town by Alex Bell

Jude is a musician who becomes possessed by the cajou queen while playing at her funeral. The queen wants Jude to find out who murdered her and therefore has to venture into the world of vampires, spirits and witch doctors. Magic and music was very much alive in New Orleans, leaning more towards the darker side of magic. As someone who knew nothing of vodoo the author explained the concepts throughout which was much appreciated. I enjoyed the story but was probably a bit too much on the dark side for me.

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The deep by Nick Cutter

I have a soft spot for chaotic and far-fetched end of the world horror stories so I dived head first into the Deep with much enthusiasm and free of any real expectation.

I hit the first page and straight up a mysterious condition known as the Gets’ has sent the world’s population on a downhill slide into dementia and death. I am hooked.  Our only hope for survival is a questionable and equally mysterious substance called Ambrosia which, as luck would have it, lives eight miles down on the ocean floor, which is really, really deep, squish you into oblivion deep in fact.