Pine
Ratings21
Average rating3.7
'It's both eerie and thrilling at once, and had me under its spell until the end.' Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men. Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone. In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago. Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it's no longer clear who she can trust. In the shadow of the Highland forest, Francine Toon captures the wildness of rural childhood and the intensity of small-town claustrophobia. In a place that can feel like the edge of the word, she unites the chill of the modern gothic with the pulse of a thriller. It is the perfect novel for our haunted times.
Tags
Genre
Moods
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
This was an enjoyable read, although quite creepy at times. The descriptive writing was very good, making it a very atmospheric read! A perfect read for this time of year.
I felt really sorry for Lauren, not just because of her lonely home life what with her father having his issues, but her school life too.
I did feel like the ending was a little rushed, leaving a few questions unanswered.
Thank you to Pigeonhole and Francine Toon for the chance to read this book.
I really enjoyed the first half of this book. The creeping dread was palpable: an isolated town populated by misfits and weirdos, where you can fell the mulch underfoot, smell the rot in Lauren's ramshackle house, shiver at the dreich Scottish weather and sympathised with this poor bullied child with the disinterested father. When a mysterious lady in white keeps appearing but no one can remember seeing her it just adds to the tension and the atmosphere.
As things start to escalate in the second half of the book, things take a turn. Mysteries are just easily discarded, which is unsatisfying (the constantly locked front room contains nothing of interest, and is just unlocked one day, meh; the mother's ghost is just hard for people to contemplate, so they forget, according to the mad old lady down the street who also sees her) and the denoument seems rushed. It all feels like a bit of a let down after the incredible, subtle effects created in the first half.
I'd probably give it 3.5* but rounded it up because I have so much good will from the incredible set up. I just wish it had just maintained that level to the end.
