The Death House

LoveReading Says

Shortlisted for the Best Horror Novel at the British Fantasy Awards 2016.

Maxim Jakubowski's April 2015 Book of the Month.

British author Pinborough has a strong record in the horror and SF field, and is also an upcoming scriptwriter but this novel represents a stunning breakthrough, following her recent compelling and clever trio of gently twisted fairy tale retellings, Poison, Charm and Beauty. In a forlorn ophanage cum hospital on an island somewhere in the far North of the UK, a group of children with an unknown potential illness are kept isolated from the rest of the world to await their cruel fate. At first, the story has echoes of Lord of the Flies, Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Enid Blyton and even Narnia, until a disruptive element enters their lives and some mysteries are slowly unveiled together with a heartbreaking set of revelations and interpersonal relationships that humanise the sometimes inevitably feral nature of the children. It's a short book and you turn the pages begging for the story to continue ever further and not reach its poetic but terrible conclusion so fast. It will leave you in tears.

A story of first love in unusual circumstances.  Much of the tale is teen angst and hormones, the interplay of which boy is boss and for how long, with friendships won and lost.  Yet there is an ever-present shadow looming: all the kids in this story are dying.  That is why they have been isolated at the ‘Death House’ like a modern leper colony.  This gives a layer of tragedy to everything and the wait to see who will go next is desperately poignant.  It won’t cheer you up but it will draw you in and even deliver a twist or two.  Good stuff.

Maxim Jakubowski

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