The Secret of Crickley Hall follows the Caleigh family as
they move into Crickley Hall for a couple of months while Gabe Caleigh works in
the area. The family have taken the decision to move away for a couple of
months at this particular time as it the first anniversary of a family tragedy.
Gabe scouted out the area in the summer and it looked like a beautiful setting.
Come autumn everything is different and the constant rain and wind doesn’t help
matters. The family dog refuses to enter the house and in the night they hear
strange noises that have no other explanation than paranormal activity.
Understandably, the family are a bit freaked out and so try to discover what on
earth is going on. They may come to regret that decision.
This book is your traditional horror book. It has the
haunted house in a remote location, the family who are emotionally vulnerable,
rumours from past occupants and locals and wild storms that cause power to fail
and phone lines to come down at inconvenient times. While all these clichés
should be off putting, and I must admit I did roll my eyes a couple of times,
it doesn’t detract too much from the story. It is still scary and when you
think you know what’s happening you don’t always. I think horror must be a
difficult genre to write because there are so many clichés but in order to
write a horror story you need to use at least some of them.
It started off a bit flowery and I was worried there would
be lots of unnecessarily over the top descriptions but there weren’t. The
descriptions aren’t too long so they don’t distract you from the plot which
allows the story to carry you along with it. I like a book that draws you in
doesn’t make you think too hard because you’re too busy reading on in order to
find out what happens. James Herbert is a bestseller for a reason. He tells a
good story that you can escape in to.
The only other horror novels I’ve read have been by Stephen
King and I don’t always find them easy to get in to. With James Herbert I found
that happened easily and would read more of his books. It has also made me
interested in reading more horror in general. The thought of it being a genre
full of people falling in love with vampires and werewolves had sort of put me
off. Crickley Hall is a long book and towards the end there is a bit too much
exposition all at once but the length felt right for all the twists and
sub-plots that there were.
Crickley Hall is one of James Herbert’s recent books and
some reviews I have read said his older stuff is better. I will have to look in
to this. I was drawn to this one because of the title and I do like an old
house. Horror is not my favourite genre but I don’t think it’s given enough
credit because it has had the piss taken out of it so much. Also the fact that
there are so many scary films around, some people may think that a scary book
is just never going to be as scary as a film. To a certain extent this is true
as with a book if you get scared you can just flip to the back and see how it
turns out. But books can be scary too and especially when the author leaves a
chapter on a cliffhanger and then goes and focuses on another character it
keeps the suspense going.
Overall rating 4 out of 5.
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