The Silence of Ghosts
by Jonathan Aycliffe
(Edited) Blurb:
Those who live in silence hear them best...After Dominic is severely wounded in service during WWII, his family sends him away from London and the Blitz, to the relative safety of their country home. His instructions are to look after his partially deaf sister, Octavia, while he comes to terms with his new reality. The crumbling family estate on the shores of Ullswater is old, neglected, and doesn’t seem a promising place for happiness or recovery.However, despite his reservations, Dominic's life soon seems to be taking a turn for the better. He has an attractive and kind new nurse named Rose, and there's hope that Octavia's asthma and hearing might be improving. But even as Dominic catches his first glimpses of a happy future, there's an eerie darkness creeping at the edges of his consciousness. Slowly, he realizes that there's something deeply wrong with this house... Octavia is hearing the voices of children-- voices that no-one else can hear-- and there is worse to come. Can Dominic solve the mystery of these phantom voices before it's too late?
My Reaction:
I enjoyed a few of the author's earlier works, but unfortunately, this one really didn't work for me. The biggest problem is that it's a ghost story that inspires very little fear. Apart from one or two creepy moments, it falls flat. Most of the efforts at horror are repetitive (the dancing!!!) and not particularly scary, in my opinion. (I think it's rare that I'll be creeped out by a detailed description of a ghost's old-fashioned clothing, and an author needs to be very clever indeed to make me shiver in fear when a ghost "plain-talks" as much as Sir William's ghost does.)
I found this novel poorly written in other respects, as well, I'm sorry to say. I realize it was set during WWII, so a mention or two of ration-related difficulties would be fine, but the author got carried away. The frequent references to rationing and the specifics of what everyone was eating/drinking, morning, noon, and night-- no, thank you! It's a ghost story, not a cozy mystery or a cookbook! Similarly, there were just too many references to Hitler and the war for a book that isn't "about" WWII.
Dominic's parents are such absolute caricatures of Evil Rich People that I laughed out loud. They were so completely over-the-top! Also, I wasn't expecting so much romance, and I ended up just skimming those parts of the book. (Well, to be honest, I skimmed a lot of the second half of this novel. I wouldn't have finished if I hadn't.) I like a good romance as much as the next person, but this one wasn't for me. I was cringing over the lovesick, lust-fueled conversations.
I hate to be so negative when I've enjoyed some of this author's other books, but this one was a big disappointment. Maybe I was expecting too much, because I enjoyed the other books. Oh well! I still haven't read The Talisman, and that one sounds promising.
