Review of The Dead Summer by Helen Moorhouse

'The Dead Summer' by Helen Moorhouse.

Martha Armstrong is starting over after a bitter divorce. She moves to the Norfolk countryside with her baby daughter and there she hopes to find peace and enough time to write the children’s book which has been in her head for years. Instead Martha finds a mystery and a chilling ghostly presence.

Helen Moorhouse’s first novel is a spine-tingling and haunting story which will entrance readers. The book romps along at breakneck speed for almost three hundred and fifty pages and the pace never lets up throughout. The sense of menace builds to a cracking climax and a heart-breaking secret.

This is a book which I would recommend to anyone who enjoys gothic, ghostly and atmospheric stories. It has a similar feel to that of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, The Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore and House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine

I look forward to more from this author and more of this type of book from Poolbeg.