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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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Christmas chills: Time of the Beast by Geoff Smith and Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray

24/12/2015

11 Comments

 
As Christmas Eve is the traditional time for ghost stories and the Gothic, so today’s the day to share a couple of my recent reads to have you scared to go to bed.

It’s the year 666, and Britain is a battleground; not only warlords fighting for territory but shamans and priests at loggerheads over people’s minds. After daring to challenge the views of his abbot, Athwold, a young monk, opts to become a hermit in the misty swamps of the Fenlands, in an attempt to reconcile himself to his own truth. But this isn’t a story of spiritual seclusion (as in The Anchoress) as his exposure to a scene of horrific demonic carnage (possibly a hallucination brought on by eating mouldy bread) moves him to join the itinerant monk, Cadroc, on the quest to root out the evil once and for all. Here Athwold finds his faith continually tested, as his mind becomes a battleground between rationality and superstition. Are these killers mythical monsters or merely men gone mad? Whose talisman has the power to defeat them, the pagan or the Roman church?

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Those familiar with my reading habits, might be surprised to discover that I was gripped by this novel. Although, unlike the author, I’m not a fan of Gothic horror stories, he kept me turning the page. Perhaps it was his depiction of England in the Dark Ages that gripped me – a period I know little about. But it might be Geoff Smith’s incarnation as a psychotherapist that did it for me, because this story also functions as an exploration of the darkness that lurks within all our minds. This is not only a story of “primitive people” but of the primitive mental processes of splitting, projection rage and paranoia that terror provokes.

Reading this in the aftermath of the Paris bombings, and the cranking up of the war on terror in response, the problems of AD 666 did not seem so remote. At times like these, it’s verging on the impossible for world leaders to be thoughtful, but perhaps they need to take the words of the shaman to heart (p204):

Fear has overcome them … because they do not know the true nature of the thing they must confront … whether man or spirit, our enemy is indeed a monster who weaves a web of fear to entangle us, to make us weak and divided, each alone within his soul’s worst terror. We must learn what it is we face and whether to fight it foremost with spear or spell.

Time of the Beast is Geoff Smith’s debut novel. Thanks to Dedalus Books for my review copy.

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Along with his mother, and older sister, ten-year-old Dieter has been uprooted from a modern council flat in 1950s London to Sugar Hall, a crumbling country house. With his father’s suicide, Dieter is the sole Sugar heir, but he hates the house and misses his friends immensely. So when he comes upon a strange boy in one of the outhouses, naked apart from a silver collar around his neck, he’s delighted to have someone to play with. But no-one has told him about the Slave Boy said to haunt the house and lure his ancestors to grisly deaths. As in the contemporary-set novel, How to Make a Friend, the friend soon becomes a threat, as Dieter becomes increasingly debilitated in both body and spirit.
While this novel is absolutely effective as a traditional ghost story, I was particularly enchanted by the subtle evocation of the socio-political context, the depiction of a Britain on its way to becoming a fairer society. Perhaps emphasised by the family name, priming questions of where and how they’ve made their fortune, the modern reader guesses immediately that Dieter’s ghostly friend was a slave. The country is standing by for the execution of Ruth Ellis, while the unconventionality of Dieter’s parents’ marriage suggests a love that dare not speak its name. Despite what we guess at her history, arriving in England in 1938 at the age of fifteen, the country set are suspicious of his mother, Lilia’s, German heritage. Meanwhile, the meaning of the word “estate” is changing as the country landowners can no longer afford the upkeep of their properties while the council invests in social housing.

Like The Cutting Season (discussed in the comments to this post), Sugar Hall is a genre novel that does not flinch from the legacy of European and North American fortunes built on the enslavement of African people. Thanks to Seren for my review copy.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
11 Comments
Sarah link
24/12/2015 09:46:57 pm

Geoff Smith’s book looks creepy good. I think I might like it but my husband would probably love it. Happy holidays to you! 🎄

Reply
Sarah
24/12/2015 09:53:30 pm

Hubbie just put the book on his wish list. 🎁 Thanks!

Reply
Annecdotist
26/12/2015 05:14:35 pm

Result! Hope he enjoys it and thanks for sharing.

Norah Colvin link
26/12/2015 06:13:46 am

Well you opening statement had me running for the hills. I had no idea that Christmas Eve was a traditional time for telling ghost stories, unless you are referring to "A Christmas Carol". I'm not into horror at all so the first story doesn't appeal to me, though your mention of a psychotherapist piqued my interest. I also appreciate the sentiments of the quote you selected and its applicability to the current situation and the difficulty for leaders in making a decision. While we expect great wisdom from them, sometimes I think we forget that they are only people who haven't experienced problems such as this before either. Let's hope their choices turn out to be the best ones.
The plot of the second novel reviewed reminds be of something else I read, perhaps long ago. I think sometimes these stories frighten me, not so much for what happens in them, but for the effect they may have, as you so aptly described, on primitive mental processes.
Thanks for the reviews, Anne. Another two I won't be adding to my list! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
26/12/2015 05:19:26 pm

I’m not sure how widespread this Christmas Eve ghost story idea is, but I suppose it does connect with A Christmas Carol. I’m quite capable of spooking myself in dark places, but don’t get particularly shivery about ghost stories. But I suppose, and I’m coming to this after responding to your comment on Wolf, Wolf, these things must be projections of our own inner turmoil. Likewise the politicians, they respond to our projections and perhaps come to believe in themselves when the evidence doesn't merit it!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
27/12/2015 05:15:37 am

Or maybe to reach that position they need a special kind of confidence in their own ability to make decisions that they are oblivious to any alternatives, regardless of the value of either.

Annecdotist
27/12/2015 11:28:32 am

Indeed, it's often the case that those who put themselves forward for positions of leadership of those who are least suited to represent others. This interesting now in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party getting a terrible roasting from the press were trying to do the job with a degree of humility and thoughtfulness.

Charli Mills
28/12/2015 10:38:01 pm

If I read too many dark Gothic tales Christmas Eve, I might need to leave up the lights longer! But I'm intrigued by Geoff Smith's story and how it seems to shadow some of today's leadership thinking.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/1/2016 09:55:40 am

Sorry I missed this earlier, Charli, – and such a long time since Christmas you might be ready for another one! Of course, the leadership link is just my interpretation, but I suppose the connection with the present is something I do look for in historical fiction.

Reply
Mary Mayfield link
22/1/2016 09:13:01 am

I've already read Sugar Hall - twice actually and loved it in a chilling, spine-tingling way both times. Like you, I'm not really a Gothic horror fan but Geoff Smith's book certainly sounds interesting.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/1/2016 09:57:52 am

Thanks, Mary, I'm surprised how much I connected with The Time of the Beast, but that's one of the pleasures of reading widely – you never know where it will take you. As, of course you well know.

Reply



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