GREEN MAN OF ESHWOOD HALL

Striking a perfect balance between mythology and realism, the Telegraph said of this novel that it 'Recalls M. R. James at his nastiest.' Eshwood Hall is a great English house surrounded by sprawling woods. It is 1962, Izzy is 13, lives in the servants' quarters and doesn't go to school. Neglected by her parents, she spends her moments of freedom exploring the forest and the village beyond. The more she comes to understand the history of the place and her own situation, the stranger are the things she sees and hears. The most tantalising of these is the Green Man in the woods who seems to know all about her, even those desires she has buried deep inside. 'As she grew closer Izzy could see that it was a chapel of some kind, though evidently long since abandoned. The trees grew so close to its outer walls, their trunks rising up like pillars, that it looked, she thought, like a church inside a church. What would a body do in such a place, she wondered; whisper the prayer inside the prayer? Worship the god inside the god?' Like a good old-fashioned horror tale with an adolescent girl at the centre with cruel parents and a friendly gardener, this is a quick and satisfying read. 212 imaginative pages, paperback.