The Others of Edenwell

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Oh, it’s sour grapes. I can accept main character death. What I can’t accept is sloppy storytelling. Earn your agonies. To lay out a romantic comedy, give us an explicit tragedy, and treat exceedingly serious issues so carelessly… that’s just poor. That’s a skill issue. For the right type of reader, and there’ll be many, The Others of Edenwell has so much to offer. I’m really glad I read it. When I was recovering from my heart surgery, she sent me a doll she’d sewn by hand: The Ghost of The Giant Squid. That was Betty’s brilliant mind – whimsical, spooky, deeply caring. The Others of Edenwell is pitched to potential readers as a high stakes horror in which our main characters are trying to protect the residents of Edenwell against this horror, a woodland beast. This supernatural creature is not a constant threat that we spend the book on edge about and as such I’d probably describe the genre as a historical fiction or historical drama first and foremost. Although the horror elements are very creepily written and imagined, they are too few and far between to be able to confidently label this book as a horror as the main genre. I hope in time most readers will know this before considering reading so they’re not disappointed, as this is a really good book. It also means the book may actually appeal to a wider audience and readers who don’t like pure horror novels!

Oh, it’s a genre issue. I eat dead doves for breakfast. The Terror is my comfort show. I almost exclusively write tragedy, but I know to telegraph it. Compassion is important. It was absent here. Stephen King’s The Mistmeets David Lynch’s Twin Peaksin this inventive, mind-bending horror-thriller.Two sisters, strangers since birth yet bound by family secrets, are caught up in a century-old mystery on an isolated island. When you’re wading through circumstances beyond your control, having someone who truly understands is more valuable than anything. Even when there’s an ocean between you, it feels like wearing armour. Freddie and Eustace are two young men, boys really, who develop a close friendship and it’s really enjoyable to witness this relationship develop and the struggles of the two characters. They and a number of different characters at the Edenwell retreat are ‘others’ – men who haven’t joined the war effort abroad. As we know from history and is showcased well here are the attitudes, guilt and atmosphere around everyone’s contribution to the war effort. People’s perceptions are impacted in a large part by this and the war permeates every part of life and conversation. In my second year of my history degree, I almost exclusively studied wartime Britain – society, culture, politics, propaganda, you name it – and I’m massively impressed with just how brilliantly Holloway has captured everything and can’t stress this enough.

I enjoyed this book immensely, despite it being quite different from what I expected. Though there are evil entities lurking in the margins, so much of the book is spent building atmosphere and tracing the growing bond between the two very central characters. This is done subtly and with great heart. Eustace Moncrieff is a troublemaker, desperate to go to war and leave behind his wealthy family. Shipped to Edenwell by his mother to keep him safe from the horrors of the trenches, he strikes up a friendship with Freddie at the behest of Doctor Chalice, the American owner of the Hydropathic. If you’re interested in the period or interested in wartime Britain during the First World War I have no doubt at all you’ll enjoy this. I think it was a great idea to make a historical drama with the added horror elements. If you’re ok with the historical fiction (that doesn’t actually feel like fiction because it’s so well written) being the majority of the book – the great character development, brilliantly brought to life setting and well researched history – with a side helping of creepy supernatural horror, you’ll find so much to love here and I’d really recommend it. Funerals bring families together.” Even if that were true, the funeral scene is devoid of emotion, and the idea of a disabled man’s death occurring to bring the group together is glaringly callous. Nonsensically, they bury him on land. A legendary sailor. They bury him without his beloved prosthetic, using it instead as a grave marker. That hideous trope. Would you use a friend’s leg bone as a tombstone? No? Think about it.The worst of it is that Izzy was right. All his fears about opening up to love turned out to be true. Intimacy and acceptance will indeed get you killed. Was that the show’s message all along? That all this community and healing is ultimately hollow, reserved only for the right kinds of people? I’m thrilled to announce that my folk horror novel, The Others of Edenwell, will be published by Titan on the 4th of July 2023.

A young woman’ssecretive midwestern town is engulfed by a mysterious plague of tornadoes every generation–and she must escape it before it claims her. Preferring the company of birds – who talk to him as one of their own – over the eccentric characters who live in the spa, bathing in its healing waters, Freddie overhears their premonitions of murder. Eustace Moncrieff is a troublemaker, desperate to go to war and leave behind his wealthy family. Shipped to Edenwell by his mother to keep him safe from the horrors of the trenches, he strikes up a friendship with Freddie at the behest of Doctor Chalice, the American owner of the Hydropathic.

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He is unsurpassed in the subtle manipulation of mood… You forget you’re just reading a story” – Publishers Weekly