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Book Review: The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

cover art for The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

Harper, 2020

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062940957

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook  ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

 

When a dark witch who is the master of a pelesit dies, the pelesit must go in search of a new master.

 

A pelesit is a Malaysian ghost in the shape of a grasshopper that has been bound to a master, created through dark magic and used to give the master power and protection. The master uses it for monetary gain, directing the pelesit to create trouble, so its victims will pay for solutions. It must feed regularly on the blood of its master and is bound to its master and the following generations. Without a binding, it causes chaos that can’t be controlled. This pelesit knows he needs to be controlled to keep darkness from completely taking him over.

 

When the pelesit finds the witch’s closest relatives, he discovers the witch’s daughter has shut herself off completely from the supernatural world. Her young daughter, Suraya, is another story. Unlike her grandmother, she makes the world a brighter place, and he binds her to him with three drops of blood in her sleep. Once the pelesit is bound to her, she changes: trouble seems to follow her, but nothing bad ever happens to her, and people start to avoid her. She names the pelesit Pink, and he becomes her only friend. But he is a dark spirit of chaos and it is a struggle for him to hold it back, especially when he perceives a threat to Suraya, and later when she does make her own friends, out of jealousy.

 

As time passes, struggle between Suraya’s brightness, widening world, and increasing independence and Pink’s darkness, and possessiveness can only lead to more and more terrible things, and also many, many Star Wars references. If insects and maggots bother you, be warned.

 

According to the author, this is a retelling of a Malaysian folktale, but she has very much made it her own. This story about family, friendship, grief, and the supernatural is compelling, unusual, occasionally funny, and sometimes disturbing, Seeing events from Pink’s point of view provides a more nuanced look than if we only witnessed events from the outside, and the author’s careful description of Malaysian ghosts, spirits, and exorcisms, contributes significantly to world-building. Highly recommended for grades 4-8.

 

Contains: child death, mutilation, insects and maggots, blood

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on November 12, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

cover art for Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

Thanatrauma by Steve Rasnic Tem

Valancourt Books, 2021

ISBN: 978-1954321052

Available : Paperback , Kindle edition (  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com  )

 

Steve Rasnic Tem is an iconic author of horror fiction who doesn’t need any introduction. Any new book written by him is an event for any lover of dark fiction.

The present collection assembles seventeen previously published stories and four original tales, most of which are imbued with a sense of dread– the curse of getting old and the feeling that death is waiting just around the corner. What else can be more horrific than that?

The  gloomy title story, “Thanatrauma”, sets the tone by portraying a widower’s gradual downfall after the death of his beloved wife. Similarly, “Saudade” is a perceptive, melancholy tale about a lonesome widower taking a cruise.

The angsty “A Stay at the Shore” is the distressing report of a long train ride to an untraceable beach by an elusive ocean , and  “August Freeze” is a veritable nightmare, depicting how a house set in the middle of nowhere becomes prey to cold and freeze, whereas all around it a glorious summer is at its peak.

In the disturbing “Forwarded”, a man returning home to celebrate his brother’s retirement finds himself overwhelmed by the memories of a long gone past.

To me the two best stories in the book are the outstanding “The Parts Man”, an insightful piece about a man making a supernatural deal to briefly bring back to life some  deceased family members (for a price), and the disquieting “ Reflections in Black”, depicting how on a Halloween night a man is allowed to fleetingly see a lost love from his past.

Although some themes tend to recur, the collection remains an upsetting but engrossing ride provided by a master storyteller.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on November 6, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Echoes of Home: A Ghost Story by M.L. Rayner

Echoes of Home: A Ghost Story by M.L. Rayner

Question Mark Press, 2020

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8553179045

Available:  Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

Les Wills is alone in the world. His brothers aren’t keeping in touch, he’s just buried his mother, and he’s depressed by it all. One night his brother Jonathan unexpectedly turns up, gifts him the deed to a remote cottage in the Scottish Highlands, and tells him that if he wants it he’ll need to be there by the next evening. With nothing keeping him, Les optimistically takes off to his new property. Jonathan’s description of the cottage wasn’t exactly accurate, though, and instead of a sales agent meeting him with the keys to a cozy cottage, he discovers a dark, chilly, isolated residence, luckily with the keys in the door.

 

After an uneasy night in his new home, Elphin Cottage, Les drives into town for supplies and breakfast, where he meets Michael Coull, an elderly resident who warns him that the cottage has a “dark past” and that many locals have seen things on the property “they dare not speak of.” Although he is entranced by the beauty of the area, Les starts to wonder if he is seeing and hearing things: a mysterious figure at the edge of a brook, tapping on the window that has no apparent cause, flickering lights in an abandoned cottage, and voices; he has vivid, unsettling dreams.

 

Proving to have the worst survival skills ever, Les wanders the area on his own despite poor weather, an unfamiliar environment, a house clearly unprepared for winter, and the feeling that he is being watched and his home invaded in his absence by… something. His terror is enough for him to flee Elgin Cottage on foot in a blizzard through several feet of snow and through a wooded area in hopes of reaching the closest inn. While there, he once again encounters Coull, who finally gives him the details of Elphin Cottage’s dark past and how to free it of its hauntings. M.L Rayner took inspiration for the story and names for the characters behind the haunting of Elphin Cottage and the surrounding area from his own family genealogy. Although it takes place at the time of the Irish Potato Blight, the story is set in the Scottish Highlands, which I did not know was also affected.

 

Rayner’s lyrical prose brings the remote environment to life, and draws vivid pictures of the starving families and blighted crops during the crop failures that led to the deaths of the ghosts haunting Elphin Cottage. The cruelty of the landowner towards his tenants and the complicity of his guests is heartwrenching.  Rayner also does a great job of creating creepy and suspenseful situations and making the reader question the mundane: did the door blow open on its own, or was it something supernatural? Les, the narrator, is less compelling, and it’s only through the relationship he builds with Michael Coull that we get any sense of him.

 

The unique backstory and creepy, suspenseful atmosphere make Echoes of Home worth checking out.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on June 11, 2021 by , Reply
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