#SummerThrills ‘The Hungry Dark’ by Jen Williams

About the book…

Macabre murders plague a rural town as a scam-artist psychic races to find the answers in this haunting thriller from award-winning author Jen Williams, perfect for fans of Camilla Sten and Alex North.

As a child, Ashley Whitelam could often see odd things nobody else could: quiet, watchful figures she called the Heedful Ones kept a strange vigil wherever she went. As an adult, she keeps these visions to herself, but she’s turned her taste of the beyond into a career as a “psychic”­ – parting people from their money with a combination of psychology and internet research. When the Lake District is gripped by a series of grisly child murders, Ashley offers her services to the police for the free publicity. But as Ashley leads the police on a fruitless search around the small town of Green Beck, she catches a glimpse of those old ghosts of her childhood and, following them into the woods, she finds something she never expected: the corpse of the latest missing child.

The press fly into a frenzy and the police grow suspicious: either Ashley’s psychic abilities are real, or she is guilty of murder. Hounded by interviews and interrogations, Ashley teams up with Freddie Miller, a podcaster covering the crimes. As they investigate, Ashley realises that there’s no way to distance herself from these murders: whoever or whatever it is that’s haunting the Lakes is haunting her, too.

Master of unsettling suspense Jen Williams is back with another chilling, dark read that will draw readers into a gruesome and atmospheric nightmare.

Published by Harper Voyager in April 24 in hardcover and e-book formats, ‘The Hungry Dark’ was a must buy for this avid reader, after thoroughly enjoying ‘Dog Rose Dirt’, review available here

Mixing an intriguing mystery with supernatural elements, threaded together by gothic sensibilities and fairy tales of the darkest kind, Jen Williams has created the perfect level of suspense in her latest novel.

You have the protagonist whose psychic powers are being exploited by her family who traipse her around the country, parading her at a seemingly endless series of working men’s clubs, community centers and bingo halls. Except what once was actively a sense of knowing has been dormant since a horrific childhood event which only she survived.

Since then, Ashley Whitelam has been untroubled by what she calls, the Heedful Ones, shadowy figures which haunt her dreams-her trouble is definitely more defined by human foibles such as greed, gossip and lies. Invited once more to return to the scene of her greatest infamy, Red Rigg House, she has a chance to out things to bed once and for all.

But with her father keen on milking the family cash cow for as long as he can, a mother who once was fiercely protective and is now a shadow of her former self, plus a brother who just wants what’s best for her, at any cost, Ash needs to summon up every single moral fibre to survive this weekend as well as keeping her sanity.

Over a locked in, snowed in psychic fair at Red Rigg House, where Ash is the main draw, an ancient and terrible secret is about to come to the surface…

This is a brilliant novel of suspense which flips back and forth between Ashley at her first visit to Red Rigg House, as a child, and her return as an adult determined to bring home the children who have gone missing in the Lake District.

It is full of contrasts-the innocence of childhood versus the ennui of adulthood, truth versus narratives spun by those with ulterior motives, accountability versus the value of appearance for appearance sake.

Ashley has never truly allowed herself to be herself-always a pawn in someone else’s game. The underprivileged child picked to go on a trip away to Red Rigg , expected to be grateful for the beneficence of the rich, a psychic no one listens to until the voices and shadows which guide her vanish, her father’s pet who relentlessly controls her small efforts to free herself from his web .

She is the pet project of Red Rigg’s family, dressed up and paraded by Malory, the daughter of the house, and preparing to do this once more as an adult at the winter psychic fair.

Even her efforts to help the police find the missing children backfires as the Heedless Ones direct her to a body that no one else was able to find…immediately putting her in the firing line of suspicion for the forces of justice , and media speculation.

Everyone has an angle, so how do you keep to a straight path to where you want to be when fingerholds are being pulled out of you left and right?

Moody, gothic, suspenseful and genuinely chilling, I could not put this down, and having read the  afterword, I have picked up Dame Hilary Mantel’s ‘Beyond Black’

About the author…

Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and their small ridiculous cat. Having been a fan of grisly fairy tales from a young age, these days Jen writes dark unsettling thrillers with strong female leads, as well as character-driven fantasy novels with plenty of adventure and magic. She has twice won the British Fantasy Award for her Winnowing Flame trilogy, and when she’s not writing books she works as a bookseller and a freelance copywriter.

Links-https://www.sennydreadful.co.uk/

Twitter @sennydreadful @HarperCollinsUK