Thank you for joining me today for my stop on the blog tour for The Winter's Child by Cassandra Parkin. I'm delighted to be opening the tour with my review but first of all let's take a look at the description for the book...
Five years ago, Susannah Harper's son Joel went missing without trace. Bereft of her son and then of her husband, Susannah tries to accept that she may never know for certain what has happened to her lost loved ones. She has rebuilt her life around a simple selfless mission: to help others who, like her, must learn to live without hope.
But then, on the last night of Hull Fair, a fortune-teller makes an eerie prediction. She tells her that this Christmas Eve, Joel will finally come back to her.
As her carefully-constructed life begins to unravel, Susannah is drawn into a world of psychics and charlatans, half-truths and hauntings, friendships and betrayals, forcing her to confront the buried truths of her family's past, where nothing and no one are quite as they seem.
A ghostly winter read with a modern gothic flavour. A tale of twisted love, family secrets and hauntings.
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There is an almost tense atmosphere that runs throughout the book especially as we are introduced to Susannah and discover that her son has been missing for five years. It really is a parents worst nightmare for their child to go missing no matter their age and especially the terrible ordeal of not knowing what happened. The way Cassandra Parkin has written this story brings this fear to the surface and also shows the effects of such an event. After only a couple of chapters I felt pretty involved in Susannah's life and her story especially after hearing the fortune-tellers predictions. The main question I was asking myself was is it fake or will there be any truth in the reading and of course what really happened to Joel. The reader is easily swept away with Susannah and her journey to discover the truth.
The Winter's Child is written in a descriptive way that easily draws you in and I couldn't help but keep on reading due to the immersive story. There are some great flashbacks that show details from the families past especially showing Susannah and John's relationship. I thought these worked so well within the story slowly building a picture of their family life. Susannah is well written and you can feel her pain of not knowing what happened to her son. At times this story felt so emotionally intense as if I was experiencing every moment with Susannah.
I really do enjoy a mystery and everything unfolds at a steady pace giving the reader just enough details to keep you fully involved but intrigued too. There is a darkness to this story that felt appealing and left me feeling suspicious of everyone. I highly recommend The Winter's Child with it's dark and atmospheric story. If you're like me it will leave you thinking about the events and characters long after reading the last page.
With thanks to Imogen at Legend Press for my copy. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.
Cassandra Parkin grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire. Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing, 2011), won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories. Her work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
The Summer We All Ran Away (Legend Press, 2013) was Cassandra's debut novel and nominated for the Amazon Rising Stars 2014.
The Beach Hut (Legend Press, 2015) is her second novel.
Visit Cassandra at cassandraparkin.wordpress.com or on Twitter @cassandrajaneuk
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