Blog Tour stop for this clever, chilling and enthralling tale which creeps around you as you read
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"Don’t play the game. "
Synopsis
Don’t play the game.
In 1893, Evelyn and Claire leave their home in a Yorkshire town for life in a rural retreat on their beloved moors.
But when a strange toy garden mysteriously appears, a chain of increasingly terrifying events is unleashed.
Neighbour Matthew Dixon befriends Evelyn, but seems to have more than one secret to hide. Then the horror really begins.
The Garden of Bewitchment is all too real and something is threatening the lives and sanity of the women. Evelyn no longer knows who - or what - to believe. And time is running out.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
My Review
This was such a cleaver and quite chilling Gothic horror, while its base with a game remind me a little of the jumangii films concept of games attacking or been sucked in to a game, this could not be more different in tone.
In this story is set in 1893 we join twin sisters Evelyn and Claire shortly after the death of there father which has left them quite wealthy.
They decide to leave their home in Yorkshire, tired of the opinions of others due to there age and the fact that neither are married and move to a more rural setting high on the Moors near Howarth to be close to the home of the Bronte's the sisters shared obsession.
Meeting others in the area Evelyn becomes friends with Matthew. He thrills and scares her with the story called The Garden Of Bewitchment. A board game with miniatures, a house, trees and items to make a garden, but as Matthew played as a child with it something evil tried to escape from the game, scared for his young life he ran away and left the game and it was never seen again.
Suddenly Claire,finds this very game in her bedroom, no idea how came to be there? and when they start to play things intensify, just what is controlling the game? or who?
This is an eerie Gothic supernatural tale which just gets under your skin, throughout you are thinking are we dealing with the twins mental health? is this a shared delusion or hallucinations? or is this a dark force, an evil that is lurking.
I am quite new to the Horror genre, not been brave enough before but over the past year I have enjoyed some amazing reads from Flame Tree Press and this book was everything hoped from reading the blurb it would be. Also it was a real treat for me having the setting near Howarth, which I am lucky to say been a Yorkshire girl born and bred, these haunting Moors are less that 20 minutes away from my home and it was so nice to really be able to visualise the area knowing it so well
What I did love about this book was that while it was horror based it was in no way played just for the scares or over the top gore or thrills, this read is a clever, chilling and enthralling tale which creeps around you as you read till you notice your full of goosebumps and by the end you realise you will never look at a dolls house or miniature in the same way again.
Author Bio
Cat first started writing when someone thrust a pencil into her hand.
Unfortunately as she could neither read nor write properly at the time, none of her stories actually made much sense.
However as she grew up, they gradually began to take form and,at the tender age of nine or ten, she sold her dolls’ house,and various other toys to buy her first typewriter– an Empire Smith Corona.
She hasn’t stopped bashing away at the keys ever since,although her keyboard of choice now belongs to her laptop.
The need to earn a living led to a varied career in sales,advertising and career guidance but Cat is now the full-time author of a number of supernatural, ghostly, haunted house and Gothic horror novels and novellas, including The Haunting of Henderson Close, the Nemesis of the Gods trilogy–Wrath of the Ancients, Waking the Ancients, Damned by the Ancients - The Devil’s Serenade, Dark Avenging Angel, The Pendle Curse, Saving Grace Devine and Linden Manor.
She lives north of Liverpool with her longsuffering husband and black cat.
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Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.
All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.