Number 89- Winterset Hollow - Jonathan Edward Durham

 

I love that cover.  Weird, minimalist and effective.

This is my first experience of JE Durham, and probably not my last.

Eamonn and his friends Mark and Caroline go on a pilgrimage to the island where his favourite author lived, and where the landscapes apparently inspired his only book - Winterset Hollow.

However, the idyll of Addington Isle turns out to be a false paradise.  The book was based on a horrible truth and someone is going to pay. It's Barley day and the hunt is on.  

Eamonn and his friends find themselves in a fight for their lives.

I loved the slow build up in the early chapters. When the book to a sharp left turn into fantasy I was completely sold and could barely put the book down.

This is an action horror.  For the last 200 plus pages the action is almost non stop.  It comes with all the storytelling issues that action films and books are prone to.  The lead characters are virtually immortal and can take immense amounts of damage and still get up and fight back.  The villains similarly seem almost impossible to kill. One villain in particular probably comes back from 7 certain death situations (a couple less than Eamonn).

There is a good balance of humour to leaven the violence of the hunt.  The interplay between the cook and the host at the banquet they find themselves invited to early on is hysterically funny in places.

I thought this was an incredibly entertaining book.  The story is excellent.  the action well paced and the humour is genuinely funny.  However the author has some verbal tics that were well annoying.  One of those was the repeated use of well in the place of very.  It's well bad writing imho. If he'd used very in all those places it would have been an overuse of the word.  For it to be a well irritating phrase like "well", was well worse.

There were a couple of other repeated phrases that caused minor annoyance, but "well" was by far the most egregious.

Having said that, it wasn't enough to spoil the fun I was having with the story. It's an easy and undemanding read with some nice (if a touch predictable) twists and turns in the narrative. There are a couple of glaring plot holes too... but again, not enough to spoil it for me.

Well recommended.  Not perfect but great fun.