Hare House: An Atmospheric Modern-day Tale of Witchcraft – the Perfect Autumn Read

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She was educated at Dollar Academy in Scotland and at Cranleigh School, Surrey, and Oriel College, Oxford. Not really sure what to make of this one and it seems a few other people have voiced the same opinion. I did listen to this as an audiobook and I think the narrator did a great job which helped to make this more engaging than it might have been otherwise. I found Sally Hinchcliffe's debut novel 'Out of a Clear Sky' gloomy and depressing, but also (in its sinister way) quietly compelling. Her second novel is perhaps less successful. True, it contains some of the same beautiful evocations of landscape and wildlife that made her debut so memorable. I really enjoyed the Scottish setting, and the occasional oblique references to myths and fairytales (the mysterious lady with the dogs, for example). In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in London in mysterious circumstances. Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home – a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest. But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad. I also didn’t connect with the main character, which meant that the stakes weren’t that high, and I didn’t love the ending.

Hare House is hiding something sinister and damned and as winter slowly starts to tighten its hold it brings with it more than just snow which soon blankets everything it touches in a muffled silence and the dark, twisted history of madness, grief and loss begins to emerge all around to once again haunt those who still dwell on these grounds. Not all these questions are answered and I did feel a bit conflicted at the end. I wasn’t totally sure what had actually happened or why, but I think perhaps that is the point. This book very much leaves you on edge, questioning your own thoughts and feelings and seeing shadows where there are none. Too late, I recalled myself,” she tells the increasingly sceptical reader. “A reaction, of course, was what she wanted, what they always wanted.”

Summary

Since 1994 she has worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in the IT department, developing databases to support its scientific work. It is the start of the year, the weather has chilled so far that the car needs de-icing in the morning and I am reliant on my head torch for my morning runs, and I am both driving to work in the dark, and coming home in the dark. And it is on days like these when my mind yearns for a good, dark chilling Gothic yarn. In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in London in mysterious circumstances. Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home - a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest. But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad.

Eerie and subtle . . . This deliciously chilly tale dodges the expected outcome and maintains a delicate balance between psychology and witchcraft right to its disturbing end * Guardian *Hare House has been on my radar for a while and I was excited to be given an early copy of it to review. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. Since 1994 I have worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the IT department, developing databases to support its scientific work. In 2001 I took a two year sabbatical from Kew to work in Eswatini (then Swaziland) as a volunteer with Skillshare International. Not really sure what to make of this one and it seems a few other people have voiced the same opinion. I did listen to this as an audiobook and I think the narrator did a great job which helped to make this more engaging than it might As anyone who has lived in the countryside will know, it is delusional to imagine, as Sally Hinchliffe’s middle-aged, female protagonist does in Hare House, that it harbours “a place of peace, where I might find refuge”. Rural communities seethe with as much intrigue as city offices and staff-rooms, and landscape is as menacing as cityscape. As we learn that our nameless narrator has fled London and her previous job at a private girls’ school in mysterious circumstances, we begin to wonder what made her sixth-form class of fresh, young girls fall down “like petals from a rose”. Who was the victim of this mass fainting? The seasoned teacher grown bitter as love turned sour, or the smirking teenage girl with a “high, light silver” laugh?