Published by: Macmillan

8. Oct 2015

Synopsis

Moving from the heart of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their twelve-year-old daughter Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House – a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion – Ollie is filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, he has dreamed of living in the country since he was a child, and he sees Cold Hill House, with its acres of land, as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, the perfect base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment. Caro is less certain, and Jade is grumpy about being separated from her friends.
Within days of moving in, it becomes apparent that the Harcourt family aren’t the only residents of the house. A friend of Jade’s is the first to see the spectral woman, standing behind her as the girls talk on FaceTime. Then there are more sightings, as well as increasingly disturbing occurrences in the house. As the haunting becomes more malevolent and the house itself begins to turn on the Harcourts, the terrified family discover Cold Hill House’s dark history, and the horrible truth of what it could mean for them . .

My thoughts

As you know I am a huge fan of Peter James, and I generally don’t read the blurb before buying one of his books,  in this case however I did and when I saw it was a traditional haunted house story with some modern twists with todays technology I thought this was going to be a great read.

I love ghost stories and Peter James’ supernatural thrillers are usually really brilliant, and this started off so well and had so much promise, but the ending was so obvious and really disappointing, I had figured out the ending pretty much half way through the book and I was really disappointed as there was so much that could have been done and so mant things left unanswered that I really wanted resolved, I probably would have liked the ending if those questions and lines of enquiry by the main character had been resolved. The characters were pretty well written as are all of James’ characters but there was something not quite right, as I really didn’t care enough about them.

I normally don’t put spoilers in but this will be a bit of one  – I feel that Peter James just got bored with this story and the ending is a poor imitation of the Nicole Kidman film, The Others (I love this film but figured out the ending of that as well).

I will still read Peter James but am deeply disappointed in this

Only 2 out of 5*