Monday 14 March 2011

Guest Review: The Darkest Room - Johan Theorin

It is a bitter mid-winter when Katrin and Joakim Westin move with their children to an old manor house on the Swedish island of Orland. But their new home is no remote idyll. Just days later, a member of Joakim's family is found drowned off the rocks nearby.

While Joakim struggles to keep his sanity, Tilda Davidson - a young policewoman fresh out of college - becomes convinced that there's a killer on the Island.

Then on Christmas Eve a blizzard strikes.

Isolated by the snow, Joakim is unaware that visitors - as unwelcome as they are terrifying - are making their way towards him.

For this is the darkest night of the year, the night when the living meet the dead.

Visit Johan Theorin's website for more information

I received this book for review but as it's not in a genre I've been reading much of recently I haven't read it yet.  My Dad borrowed the book and I managed to convince him to write his first ever review for me to use on my blog.  Thanks Dad!

Guest Review:
I liked this book and would give it 4 stars.  Personally I think the blurb on the cover is an exaggeration and does not do the story justice.  It is not a frightening horror/crime story.  It is an eerie believable ghost story about a house that was built from wood salvaged from a vessel wrecked off of the Island in 1846.  However this is no Hollywood type of sinister monster house.

It is the story of how Joakim and his children cope with the death of his sister and wife.  Intertwined with details of the tragic deaths of men, women and children associated with the house.  The house is like a church with a graveyard without the corpses and you can imagine the ghosts meeting each year on Christmas Eve in silent remembrance.

It is also a story about this Island and the terrifying Blizzards that occur.  Snow mixed with sand driven by the wind from the Baltic, so harsh that it can damage the eyes.

I also liked the imagery -
"waves like slow breathes in the darkness" - describing the sea
"pale half moon behind a film of cloud as fine as silk

Source: Received from Transworld Publishers in exchange for an honest review

Other Reviews:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

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