Release Date: September 28th 2021
Publisher: Titan Books
Pages: 336
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: The publisher kindly sent me a copy of this book to review
Rating: 4.25/5 stars
Synopsis
Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking.
Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play “Sleepy Hollow boys,” reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow have ever said. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods?
Review
Christina Henry is well known for her retellings and when I heard her newest release was a retelling of Sleepy Hollow, I was desperate to get my hands on it. The story follows Ben Van Brunt a resident of sleepy hollow. Everyone in the village knows the legend of the horseman, but no one actually believes it happened. When Ben and a friend are out playing in the woods, they discover the headless body of one of the village children. Ben soon becomes entangled in a web of secrets and is determined to uncover the truth – is the Horseman real or is the evil thing in the woods even more sinister?
Just like every other Christina Henry book I’ve read, I absolutely raced through this one. It’s the perfect Autumn/Winter read and is full of atmosphere. I loved the tense, eerie feeling in the story and there are plenty of creepy moments. The story was actually a little gorier than I was expecting but it worked really well with the story. There were also a few moments that I found genuinely quite scary, which is always the mark of a good horror tale.
The pacing in the story was excellent and Horseman is a book you will find hard to put down. Henry has created some truly wonderful characters in this book and I absolutely adored Ben, Brom, and Katrina. Horseman is a well-executed story and one that I still found myself thinking about after I’d finished reading. If you’re looking for a dark and spine-tingling story to keep you reading until the wee hours of the morning, Horseman is a brilliant choice.
The Dark is one of those novels where you sit down to read a chapter or two and then look up to find hours have passed and you haven’t even noticed. The story has a really intriguing premise – Kate North is a doctor who has taken up a new post at a remote research station in Antarctica after the previous doctor has died from an accident on the ice. When Kate arrives she soon learns the job might not be all that she hoped, with the entire winter spent in darkness, tensions soon become frayed. Kate begins to suspect that Jean-Luc’s death might not have been the accident it appeared to be – but is there a killer amongst them and will they strike again?
The Devil Makes Three is one of those books that I read at the absolute perfect time and I got completely wrapped up in the story. This YA fantasy/horror follows Tess, an assistant at the Jessop Library – home to a large collection of ancient (and dangerous) grimoires. Eliot is the headmaster’s son is desperate to get his hands on some of the most restricted texts in the library. When Tess and Eliot accidentally stumble upon a secret tunnel in the library, they find a strange book that releases an ancient devil from his prison. This leaves Tess and Eliot no choice but to work together to find a way to put the devil back before it destroys everything they know and love.
The Offset is an incredibly intriguing story, one set in a world where overpopulation is counteracted by a ceremony known as the offset. When a child reaches 18, they must choose which of their parents must die. Miri is the daughter of the famous Jac Boltanski, leader of Project Salix that will help to save the world. When Jac finds some irregularities in the project’s data, she must discover what’s going on. Meanwhile, their offset is days away and Miri has run away from home. Miri knows in a few days’ time she will need to make an impossible decision – which of her parents will die? The one she loves or the one she hates who might be humanity’s last hope?
Cwen follows the story of an archipelago off the coast of Britain whereby women are in control – they run the businesses, make decisions for the community and decide how the money should be spent. All this is possible because of the work of Eva Levi but now she has disappeared, there is a chance it will be destroyed, will Cwen be able to stop it?
The Bone Shard Emperor is the stunning second instalment in Andrea Stewart’s The Drowned Empire series. Book one The Bone Shard Daughter was one of my favourite reads of 2020 (and all-time) so I was incredibly excited to get my hands on the sequel. Picking up where we left off in book one, Lin now sits on the throne, but her troubles are far from over. A rebel army of constructs is on the way, determined to take the throne, her alliances are far from strong and she is unsure who to trust. When the Alanga return to the Empire and claim to come in peace, Lin knows she will need their help if she has any hope of bringing peace to the Empire, but can she really trust them?
Queen of YA crime Karen M. McManus is back with a new thriller – You’ll Be the Death of Me. The story follows three students – Ivy, Cal and Mateo. They used to be close but have drifted apart. When the three run into each other in the school car park, it seems like the perfect opportunity to recreate the best day ever. They skip school, heading into the city for a day of fun. The three friends quickly realize they don’t have much in common anymore, but when they run into another student skipping, they decide to follow him. The three friends then find themselves wrapped up in a murder investigation and learn their random meet-up might not have been random at all.
Blue Running is the moving story of fourteen-year-old Blue. Blue lives in the small town of Blessing, which is part of the Republic of Texas. When an accident occurs and Blue’s friend Maggie is fatally wounded by a gunshot, everyone believes Blue did it. With Blue’s father being the drunken town deputy and her Mother abandoning them when she was little, Blue has no choice but to go on the run. Whilst on the run Blue meets Jet – a pregnant Latin American woman just as desperate to escape her past. The two must work together if they have any hope of surviving the motorcycle gangs and Texas Rangers out looking for them. But will they make it to the wall and be able to escape Texas forever?
Cytonic is the early awaited third instalment in Brandon Sanderson’s epic Skyward series. The story follows Spensa as she has gone from life as a space cadet to one of the best pilots in the Defiant Defence Force. Now an undercover spy infiltrating the Superiority, she has seen the Delvers the Superiority plan to use in the war. Spensa much discover what she truly is if she has any hope of saving the galaxy from destruction.
Year of the Reaper first caught my eye because of that absolutely beautiful cover. The story follows Cassia, a member of one of the most trusted families in the kingdom. When Cas is taken prisoner by a rival kingdom, he is forced to reside in a prison cell for three years. On returning home he finds the villages and towns destroyed by plague. His family castle has become a sactuary for the king and queen, desperate to escape the plague. When an assassin begins to target those closest to the queen, Cas must team up with historian Lena to uncover the truth behind the attacks. As the delve deeper into the mysteries of the past, what they uncover could destory the peace between the two kingdoms.
The Bibliophile Chronicles 