Sometimes Ashley Whitelam wonders if perhaps things were better when she and her family lived in a small London flat when she was a child. The happenings of one night changed all that. Now as an adult, her father has turned her into the sole source of income for their family. She is an admitted (to herself) scam artist posing as a psychic separating vulnerable people from their money. It's not to say that she doesn't have some supernatural powers because she does have visions others can't see. However, she keeps this to herself because she doesn't understand the reason for them. When her community is plagued with child murders, her father offers her services to the police hoping for free publicity. Ashley shocks even herself when she finds the body of the latest missing child. Is she or isn't she a psychic?
THE HUNGRY DARK, by Jen Williams, is a dark and eerie tale. It is so well told that the story is immersive from start to finish. Ashley is a complex protagonist whose position in her family is peculiar. She craves freedom from her creepy father who exerts a strange kind of control on her life, but the relationship is complicated. Her relationships with her mother and brother are troubling as well. The narrative is multi-layered and becomes complicated when Ashley begins to delve into the cases of the missing and murdered children. When she returns to the place that changed her life, the story becomes propulsive. Her very existence is on the line. Will her powers save her?
Skillfully crafted, THE HUNGRY DARK has all the elements of a mesmerizing thriller. Exciting and fast-moving, this book is well worth reading. Highly recommended.
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.
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