276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Wakenhyrst

£4.995£9.99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

The opening chapter of this novel really does draw the reader in, I enjoyed the atmosphere and descriptions of the the Manor House and fens. But unfortunately the Plot was slow and uneventful. I felt the story dragged and the mystery and suspense created at the beginning, seemed to wane the further along the book I read. I wasn’t a fan of the constant switching between narratives as a lot of the story became repetitive and quite confusing. The book fo Alice Pyett is basd on the Book of Margery Kempe. Like Alice, Margery Kempe was married in her teens, had an unconscionable number of children and ended up longing for chastity.

In an additional similarity to Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the element of the supernatural in Wakenhyrst is never made explicit – instead only making an appearance in the character’s dreams and visions. This appears to serve multiple functions, largely to make obvious Edmund Stearne’s poor grasp on reality, to illuminate the ludicrous religious and superstitious phenomena experienced by the inhabitants of Wakenhyrst, but also so as not to undermine the stark, natural power of The Fens. For others that are looking for a spooky October read-- this story has no chilling or scary moments! I can't understand why that is even stated in the Publisher's summary. There is nothing in this book that comes close to being spooky, it is all cruelty and unfairness in the life of an intelligent young girl. Part of the novel is about some slats of wood with painted images, found behind the church. Throughout the story Maud’s father becomes more and more obsessed by them. They are recovered and sent away to be restored and eventually returned to the church. These medieval paintings on wood are known as a doom. Wakenhyrst mostly takes place in the early 20th century, just prior to the first World War, and combines creepy medieval church art; old religious notions of witchcraft, demonic possession, and saintly miracles; lingering pagan superstitions (leaving a bowl of bread and milk at the door, for witches); a creaky old manor house; the eerie natural beauty of the watery fens. The details of a murder are provided upfront, the rest of the book covers the events leading up to it. So you get a great early hook, but it also means the book drags a little towards the end - knowing what’s coming, I grew impatient to finally get there, and it’s a real slow burn.I loved Maud, the manor, the Fen. I loved the darkness, the obsessiveness, the building sense of dread. I loved Chatterpie. I hated Maud's father, but found his journals made for excellent reading.

Maud loves the fen and feels at home wandering its watery wilderness. However her father is scared of it, his guilt manifesting in his paranoia. The pervasive marsh smell starts to haunt him as he becomes more and more obsessed with the rantings of Alice Pyett, ironically a female spiritualist. It’s gripping and tense, and my favourite Michelle Paver book by far. Put not your faith in men, she thought. That out there is all you can trust: that hedge and that wet grass. Those dripping trees.” Wakenhyrst is a framed narrative set in Edwardian Suffolk, at the Sterne family’s ancestral marshland home of Wakes End. The story follows the life of Maud Sterne and her account of the mysterious events leading up to a gruesome murder committed by her father. We see Maud mature into adulthood while simultaneously watching her father, Edmund, descend into madness.

Featured Book

Every so often I come across a novel that touches the very core of my being with its beauty. Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver is one such book. I fear anything I write will not do this otherworldly novel justice, but I shall try. What we know from the beginning of the book is that one day, when Maude is 16 years old, her mother dead and gone, her father kills someone horribly, never denies having committed the murder either (but saying that he had to do it) and ending up in a well screaming himself half to death. A lonely existence without a mother, the young girls relationship with her domineering father adds to her isolation. Set at the turn of the nineteenth century, Maud is a nine-year old at the start of the novel and sixteen at the conclusion of her narrative, a girl on the cusp of adulthood in a world on the cusp of modernity, but still treated as a child of the Victorians by her father, the historian Edmund Stearne, and other patriarchal authority figure in society around her: the rector, Mr Broadstairs, and the doctor, Dr Grayson.

Wakenhyrst is a gothic style horror set in the fens of East Anglia. While the characters are fictional, much of the story is based on real historical accounts; the delirious writings of a spiritualist, the disturbing paintings of asylum inmates, and the doom, a religious mural depicting the Day of Judgement. These early chapters were well written and engaging enough, but very much the preamble to the core narrative which begins when Father, now widowed and bedding the maid, Ivy, with renewed vigour, discovers a painted eye in the grass of the churchyard, from which clue a painting is discovered and dated. The Wakenhyrst Doom, a depiction of The Last Judgment with a savage lascivious demon lurking in the corner, joyfully torturing a range of sinners in the style of Hieronymous Bosch, described as I adored how Paver made the natural surroundings in the book of central importance to the characters: Stearne who fears the marsh and the fenland and Maud who feels truly herself when she is in the wildnerness of the fens, a forbidding place, but the only place she can truly be herself. Religion is an important aspect of the book, but nature is the true spirit in this book, where absolution and judgement takes place. Nature wins.A] superb, supernatural novel ... Paver deliciously ratchets up the tension as Maud struggles for autonomy in the face of her father's deranged obsessions' Daily Mail. It was not me who discovered Michelle Paver about five years ago, but my daughter when she pulled “The Wolf Brothers” off the shelf at our local library and then read all six books of the “Chronicles of Ancient Darkness” in short succession. So you may forgive me, that I had Michelle Paver down as a middle grade author until I saw Wakenhyrst on the shelf at the same library but this time in the adult section of “new and notable releases”. The magpie on the cover sealed the deal, because I adore the birds for their chatter and cheekiness. I really enjoyed the elements of folk-horror Paver used in the novel. Images of swamp demons with wide mouths and frog-like eyes, impish creatures with swampy green horns, they paint a very different picture to the antiquated Christian red-skinned devils so often depicted in medieval dooms. Father was a very distant and cold character, quietly tyrannical in his running of the house, against which Maud rebelled, and focussed on his work on the writings of an obscure female mystic from the fifteenth century, Alice Pyett; Maman suffers from the triple disabilities of being female, foreign and “an inherited flaw” impeding her ability to bear children. Or perhaps a desperate attempt to retain some bodily autonomy in the face of a husband who refuses contraceptives and refutes the medical advice that he ought not to expect her to pay the “debt of matrimony”, at least “not every night”. Hence, perhaps, the mysterious tonics and strange practices with dead men’s hands. The actions of Father are controlling and abusive as he

Gothic thriller spanning five centuries. A woman living with her repressive father faces a battle against witchcraft and sorcery when a strange icon is discovered in a churchyard' Love It Magazine. The most impressive nov­el of the year. It’s an utter triumph of a book, a pitch-perfect evocation of the stories of M.R. James and A.C. Benson filtered through a 21st-century sensibility. We now learn of her father's sins in his own childhood as well as his view on married life and children through the diaries he keeps that young Maude keeps reading secretly. She learns things even more horrible than one might expect from the above description, believe me. Through Edmund’s journal, his entitlement of his position in the world is clear. He can treat those in his household how he pleases, as long as he keeps up appearances to society. As Maud’s account starts, she knows her mother is constantly ill, resulting in “the groaning”. Edmund’s sexual desires take precedence over his wife’s health, who repeatedly suffers miscarriages. Young Maud makes up her own version of events until she starts to read her father’s journals. The gulf between these two existences was vast. There was no in-between. Either he was a murderer, or he was not.Edmund Stearn is - sorry to say this so bluntly - an asshole. A tyrant who excuses away all his behavior with God's will and a woman's role and his divine right etc. His wife is French, originally, and plays along to the extend of allowing him to take her again and again despite her body slowly but surely giving up. She keeps getting pregnant and miscarrying and little Maude has to watch it all. Think of what that does to a child.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment