This is my second Marcus Sedgwick book and I will say that I thought that MidwinterBlood was the better of the two. This book was advertised as horror and is undeniably creepy and suspenseful. Sedgwick’s prose once again has the same sparse quality that I admired in MidwinterBlood and while it works, especially for the setting and atmosphere, I feel character development was lacking in this book. I am left unsure if this was purposeful, to leave it up to the reader to come up with some of their own ideas about the characters or if it really was due to being rushed, which was how it felt to me.

The most intriguing character in the book is Ferelith, (even though I found her name a little pretentious and annoying) but I really wanted to know more about her. The story is told in alternating POVs of the girls and a rector or priest from the 1790’s. There was a very interesting historical tie in that I was already familiar with and so I found it a good hook for the story for me. The book certainly was creepy, however not in the same league as Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, which I read as a teen and it had me sleeping with the lights on for weeks and making sure my curtains were shut tight at night. The ending was good and had a twist to it.

On the whole, very quick, easy read, lovely succinct prose, but felt rushed with not enough meat to the characters.