I took part in a workshop a while ago, and I’ve been so lucky as to win a bundle of eleven books. They’re horror/mysteries and thrillers.
I never heard about any of the authors before, but I’ve got through four of the books and they’ve been a pleasant surprise. The weird thing though is that three of the books are from the same author – you guessed it: Darcy Coates.
As you can see in the picture, the books are The Haunting of Ashburn House, The Carrow Haunt and Voices in the Snow.
In general, I enjoyed the writing. Her style isn’t too pompous or too simple. It flows well and describes very precisely both the scenery and what happens.
If you read more of my posts about books, especially the one about Agatha Christie, you know my opinion about plot twists and mysteries. I like them, as does every reader, but I do appreciate some good foreshadowing. I’m glad to say that the author is great at this. She keeps a lot of secrets, of course, but she also knows how to give you enough to keep going, and enough hints to let you guess what’s going to happen. And yes, I did guess right a few times. All the creative writing studies are probably helping; seeing the story from a more theoretical perspective lets me think about it in a different way and figure out what’s happening.
My favorite book, among these ones, has been The Haunting of Ashburn House. It’s flawless, and I would’ve enjoyed it even if it was longer. I loved the protagonist, and I would have liked seeing more of her after the events of the book.
One of my problems with horror fiction is that most of the time it isn’t scary. I fell asleep listening to a horror audiobooks once, which shouldn’t happen with enough tension, I’d think (and no, I didn’t go on with it when I woke up). Instead, when I was reading this I had to stop and relax a few times, looking around because I heard a noise and was startled and– yeah, almost scared. Which is really good in my book (pun unintended).
The reason why I haven’t enjoyed The Carrow Hunt and Voices in the Snow as much may have been the love stories. I’m no good with love stories— be it writing or reading them. If I’m not in the exact mood for them (which is almost never) they’re going to bore me to death and there’s no way out of it for me.
In The Carrow Hunt the love story is less important, so it didn’t bother me as much, but I’ll admit I almost wanted to drop Voices in the Snow. I read till the end because I was curious about what would happen and it was good anyway. I won’t buy the following book since I already know it’s not my thing, but I will read more from the author and my expectations are high.
I feel like I wrote a lot without actually saying anything. In conclusion, I loved her writing, but I learnt I should be careful and first check if there’s any love story included before reading a novel.
And that’s all about her! Do you guys read/enjoy horror fiction?