Reviews for Blackened Cottage -

AERichards Reading The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

12 Sep 2012, 03:16 PM | Post: #1

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Reviews for Blackened Cottage

This post was last modified: 12 Sep 2012 03:21 PM by AERichards.

Now that I've got a few reviews I thought I ought to start posting them here. I've got 6 so far and now I've created this thread I'm going to add all future ones so it's only a matter of time I guess before some 1 and 2 star reviews appear...

Thanks to IoIage for his/her 5 star review:

Brilliant new author produces 1st class thriller
Written in an appealing and unusual style, of narrative combined with diary and letter entries, the author keeps you glued to the page. You follow the heroine as she is chased by a number of people. Then just as you think her ordeal is over it starts again and this time the terror is increased.
This psychological thriller grips you from the start, the twists and turns lead you to ponder is it a ghost story - how will it end - what will happen next, then as you journey with the main character the truth slowly dawns and is confirmed to reveal; the true horror the main character has already seen and the new ones she has to deal with.
As soon as I finished this book I started reading it again,(something I rarely do) it is very cleverly written and I can recommend it to anyone who loves a puzzle.

And this week I've had two reviews from KUF members. Thanks Barry and Dorte.

5 stars
Poe gets a make-over
B J Burton - Author
Think of the coldly gripping Gothic horror of EAP; think of the excitement of a modern chase movie; now combine the two and you have a feel for Blackened Cottage. Images of blood and souls in torment abound as the stage is set in Victorian England. Questions kept forming as I tried to find a possible explanation for what was occurring. The questions kept coming as the book maintained its horror theme, but moved into an exciting chase thriller. Who are the real villains? Who is real and who is not? The author drops subtle clues along the way that the careful reader will pick up.
I developed a theory - and the author proved me right. But there was no time for self-congratulation as the story swept me off around more twists and turns until the chase concluded.
This is a very well plotted and very well written book that I strongly recommend - as long as you think your nerves can take the strain.

4 stars
Intriguing page-turner
Dorte Jakobsen
I don't read thrillers very often, but I was intrigued by the cover of "Blackened Cottage". And I wasn't disappointed as it was a real page-turner, set in the past.
A very promising debut with several unexpected twists. No spoilers - you'll have to read it yourself!
The only minus is that the tone of the diary by Charles Cutteridge was not quite as convincing to me as the rest.

Avid reader, author of Blackened Cottage and taking an MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University starting October 2012

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AERichards Reading The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

21 Sep 2012, 07:16 AM | Post: #2

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

I've had a few more reviews, now up to 10. So far so good in that there are no 1 or 2 star reviews (or even any with 3 stars) but they'll come I know!

The latest 4 include two more from KUF members (did i see Kuffians as the collective term on someone's post?). So thanks to Julie (word-digester) and Susanne for reading and reviewing my book. I've now had 4 people describe my book as 'Gothic' and I never even thought of that when I wrote it!

5 stars
EXCITING , EXCELLENT READ
julieg (u.k.)
This is an excellent, exciting psychological thriller, based in Victorian England, a Gothic chase.
Once introduced to Lisabeth...you are compelled to follow her chilling tale, which holds many twist's, turn's and surprise's.
Was a page turner of a book, once started I had to read in one go.
Will be looking out for next book

4 stars
Out of the ordinary
Susanne (Surrey, England)
I don't normally read this type of Gothic thriller, but decided to give it a go due to a recommendation.
The book is very well written, very tense and dream-like, in a nightmarish sort of way. I tried to guess the outcome, but didn't manage to. Having now finished the book, it needs a second reading for me to understand the finer points of the story. An unusual and enjoyable read

4 stars
Compelling and original
Ann M "Ann" (Wimbledon, UK) my reviewsThis review is from: Blackened Cottage (Kindle Edition)
This is a highly original and well plotted psychological thriller set in Victorian times. It is written in letters, diary entries and narrative, which is very effective and easy to follow. There is a strong Gothic horror element to the novel and at times I felt I was reading a ghost story.
Tension in the novel is gradually built up as the main character Lisbeth escapes from Blackened Cottage, where she is being held by her father against her will. However nothing is as it appears and I certainly didn't see the final twist coming.
Although descriptive the writing is quite tight and the author doesn't waste words unnecessarily. The main characters are well drawn particularly Lisbeth though I wasn't totally convinced by Mortimer. All in all a compelling read and an excellent debut novel.

5 stars
Not for the faint hearted!
Abi Miller
I don't normally write reviews, but this debut book by A E Richards is a cracker. I read it in one go as I couldn't put it down. The style was easy to read and the story flowed really well. The twists and turns kept my interest and I also shed a tear (always a good sign!). I would recommend it to anyone who can take a little trepidation with their books!

Avid reader, author of Blackened Cottage and taking an MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University starting October 2012

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

28 Sep 2012, 12:17 PM | Post: #3

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Four more reviews have come in since Abby's last posting, including another from a KU Forum member (thanks Joo). Another mention of 'Gothic' in one of them so that's definitely a recurring theme.

4 stars
Excellent Gothic Novel, 21 Sep 2012
Martha Bryce (Kentucky)
The Blackened Cottage is a beautifully conceived and executed gothic novel by A. E. Richards.
Richards has managed to interweave all of the excruciatingly bleak, painful, and horrific elements of the classic gothic novel into her new book. The heroine, Lisabeth Cutteridge has been moved by her father to a gloomy cottage in the woods, far from civilization. Lisabeth is lonely and terrified by her father's descent into madness. Because her mother has disappeared from their lives, Lisabeth is bound to her father, despite his madness, in order to care for her young brother, Eddie. An odd disfigured girl named Bethan is her only friend, a true friend who comes to her rescue after Charles Cutteridge sends Eddie to London to boarding school and imprisons Lisabeth to force her marriage to a repulsive Frenchman, Jean Bernard. Lisabeth runs away through the woods, escaping not only her father but also a madwoman living in the woods who believes Lisabeth to be her long dead daughter. Lisabeth catches the eye of a psychopath whose intentions for her are deadly dark but manages to escape to London with the help of an itinerant preacher and his servant, Jojo. The atmosphere created in the book is gloomy and horrific. Our emotional and imperiled heroine suffers from nightmares and a past she cannot remember and encounters madness and evil at every turn in her quest for escape and peace. Will Lisabeth ever find the true escape that she craves or will she spend the rest of her life running from both real and imagined horrors until her life ends in tragedy?

4 stars
A compelling read, 24 Sep 2012
Grace
I am currently recommending the Blackened Cottage to all my friends who enjoy an exciting and stimulating story. Psychological, fast-moving, challenging; Richards spins a web with her words and you are only released when you have completed the journey. I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

4 stars
Blackened Cottage, 24 Sep 2012
Joo (in UK) "kuforum" (Wales, UK)
I started reading this book without really knowing much about it. Other reviewers I trust had recommended it, so I thought I'd have a read. Sometimes it really helps not knowing what's going on. For this story, it enhanced reading it for me.
It's the story of a young girl running away. She has various chasers and helpers and you do have to suspend your disbelief as to all the times she gets into trouble.
I enjoyed the different POVs. I thought it made the reading fresh. It took a bit of time for me to realise what era the book was set in, but that was just me Smile

If you like something a little different, then this is a good one. I rather enjoyed it.

5 stars
Awesome, 28 Sep 2012
Rick
Simply outstanding. A.E. Richards has delivered a great piece of art. Her story telling is like nothing I have read. Easily best book I have read this year. Look forward to many more great works for this author.

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Susanne Reading I Woke Up This Morning by Stuart Ayris

28 Sep 2012, 12:21 PM | Post: #4

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

You're Abby's Dad, Steve! Just got the connection. Smile

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

28 Sep 2012, 12:38 PM | Post: #5

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

(28 Sep 2012 12:21 PM)Susanne Wrote: You're Abby's Dad, Steve! Just got the connection.

That's me !

Steve

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

25 Oct 2012, 08:13 AM | Post: #6

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Three more reviews in the UK since the last update, bringing it to 17 overall at an average of 4.6 stars.

5 stars
Blackened Cottage, 19 Oct 2012
Jenny Hedges
Mysterious throughout and in places terrifying, this was an excellent holiday read. The central character Lisbeth is intriguing, vulnerable yet strong, reminiscent of a gothic romantic heroine. With some excellent chase sequences, I found this a real page turner. Letters and diary entries are used very successfully to build the mystery surrounding Lisbeth's family. The story builds in pace and suspense with hugely likeable characters and some horrifying ones. The ending has a twist which leads you to reflect back more deeply on the characters and appreciate the way the author has developed them. It is a vividly descriptive book, which carries you away.

5 stars
excellent!, 16 Oct 2012
toria
well i read the reviews and thought i'd give this book ago~and am so glad i did! very well written , a fab story~a must read.

4 stars
Blackened Cottage, 7 Oct 2012
Roz
I liked the way some of this book was written IE Letters, Diary Note Etc.
Lisbeth is confused & lost in her own world,
Her only chace Big Grin

of survival after years of suffering is to run, will she find her brother in time, will she escape the terror of her father.
It keeps you right to the end to find the answer

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

02 Nov 2012, 05:34 PM | Post: #7

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Two more UK reviews, making it 19 in total at an average of 4.6 stars.

5 stars
Excellent - mysterious, thrilling & hard to put down, 26 Oct 2012
kindle_maniac73
I really enjoyed this book ! I read around 3 books a week and most are thrillers, but I found this one refreshingly different. Set in the past, it has a strong fantasy/fairytale feel and is at heart a psychological/ghostly mystery. I was hooked in the first couple of pages and didn't want to put it down.

It starts off very claustrophobic, which in some ways reminded me of Before I Go to Sleep in that your interpretation of events is directed by the very narrow view of the main character and you aren't given enough information to draw your own conclusions - which keeps you turning the pages!

The latter half of the book is much more action-orientated and very exciting. By this time, I had some suspicions about what was going on, but didn't understand the whys -and as another reviewer has said, it didn't spoil the book at all because I was so caught up in the chase and eventual fate of Lisbeth.

The supporting characters are very well drawn and you care about them all. My only criticism, as another reviewer has said, is that the diary entries of the father didn't quite ring true, but I have to say that the book sucked me in so completely that at the time, I would have believed anything!

For me, it delivered on every level and I was sorry to finish it! I have so many books waiting to be read that I never read one twice, but if I ever were to, this would be the one! I suspect there are so many subtle clues that you would pick up on the second time around.

I have recommended this to all my kindle-friends and will be looking out for the next book from this author. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

4 stars
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER AT ITS BEST, 25 Oct 2012
Cinta Garcia Rosa "Austenite78" (Spain)
I was provided a free copy of this novel by the author, in exchange of an honest review.

This interesting psychological thriller has been quite a surprise. Both for the story and for the format chosen. This book includes narration, letters, and diary entries, which add to the suspense and development of the story. The story of a woman who cannot recollect certain events from the past and who cannot figure out why she is feeling as if she is a different person. Her relationship with the people who surround her is a strange one, due to her fears and uncertainties.

Lisbeth lives in Blackened Cottage with her father and her brother Eddie. Her relationship with her father is not a good one, since it seems that he is a violent and unstable man. She longs to escape from the cottage, and she will find a friend in the forest. However, is everything what it seems to be? Can we be sure of what the true events are? Lisbeth will have to live through an ordeal to discover the truth, and the journey is not going to be an easy one.

This book is a very good example of how a brilliant character development can make of a book an amazing read. The many different characters, and the different voices and points of views, all add to the plot, revealing things at the right time, making you read and read to discover the truth. I especially loved the fact that you cannot be sure of who has evil intentions, since all of the characters seem to be up to something, something that won't be revealed until it is the right moment to do so. This is brilliant.

This story, which also incorporates some horror elements, will keep you hooked from the very beginning. Some of the descriptions, which are not too lengthy or unnecessary, are so detailed that you cannot help it but feel the same as the protagonist. It really made me shiver sometimes, giving me goose bumps.

I definitely recommend this book. I removed one star, though, because I found a diary entry and a letter that seemed to be misplaced. A formatting mistake? But apart from that, this book is sheer genius. Well done!

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

16 Nov 2012, 02:04 PM | Post: #8

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Blackened Cottage received its most comprehensive review yet on The New Podler Review which I have reproduced in full below. The reviewer is himself a writer and I like his style - in particular the reference to 'bluefin tuna'!

A young woman is haunted by a past she can't remember. She feels threatened by her father and his lascivious friend. In her efforts to elude the pair and track down her brother, a third man hunts her for his own depredations.

Set in England in 1875, the story has a definite Gothic feel to it. Richards is adept at illustrating the scene. The "Blackened Cottage" where Lisbeth, our protagonist, lives evokes fear with every creaking floorboard. The air she breathes threatens to smother her in gloom.

Richards doesn't hold back with her descriptive narrative. Every adversity that Lisbeth faces is given its due in highly detailed prose. She gets credit for her inventive metaphors. Here are three brief selections that jumped out at me:

There is no response but the wind’s drunken slur.
His nails scrape my skull like a wolf scraping soil for bones.
I whisper with the breath of a mosquito's wings...

The story is primarily told from Lisbeth's point of view. Not only does she provide the narrative but we also get to read her diary entries and letters to her absent mother, who left the family for reasons unknown (part of Lisbeth's memory loss). To add to the drama, Richards also offers diary entries from the father and wicked confessions from the third man. By doing so, Richards helps the reader bond with Lisbeth and sympathize with her plight. There really are men after her.

While I believe the intent was to maintain tension, I found a lot of passages that repeated character intentions and internal monologues. The third man's confessions and the father's diary entries say much of the same thing with different wording. Lisbeth dwells on her fate at the hands of one man or another and revisits her revulsion with each encounter.

As this is "a psychological thriller with a twist", you'll have to look hard to find the clues that Richards gives the reader. Other than one obvious clue, they're hard to find and Richards throws a couple red herrings at the reader to mislead us. Once the truth was revealed, I went back and re-read some sections from objective voices. I have to say that Richards pushed the limit here. Even with the clarity afforded by the reveal, there are certain sentences which cross the line. I can't say anything more without spoiling it.

As for the technicals, there were many dialogue punctuation errors, primarily involving commas. Spelling typos were minimal. There was also one historical inaccuracy. At one point, Lisbeth talks about a distance in meters, but the metric system hadn't been adopted outside of the scientific community in England at the time. However, Richards used miles to show the distance between towns. I think most readers will overlook these things.

In summary, Blackened Cottage is a solid debut from A.E. Richards. Her descriptive narrative underscores her attention to detail, helping readers get lost in the dreary winter of 19th century England. Characters are vivid too. While the red herrings thrown at the reader are the size of bluefin tuna, Richards holds true to the plot and her protagonist. Fans of psychological thrillers who don't mind a trip back to the 19th century, or Victorian era historical romance readers looking for something different, will enjoy this book.

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

20 Nov 2012, 02:02 PM | Post: #9

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Three more UK reviews, making it a total of 22 reviews: 14 with 5 stars and 8 with 4 stars. Blackened Cottage is now available in paperback at feedaread.

5 stars
A GOOD PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER, 19 Nov 2012
Linda "LindaL" (London UK)
Dark and compelling is how I found this book. The author uses a very good descriptive narrative which brings you into the time and atmosphere of the story, Victorian England. I swear I could even smell the revolting Mortimer. I really enjoyed this different book. I didn't see the end coming, there were a lot of twists and excitment en route. Throughly enjoyable if scary as you worried about so much about Lisbeth. Do give it a try if you dare.....

5 stars
Blackened Cottage, 12 Nov 2012
Davinia
I enjoyed reading this first novel by Ms Richards. It is very well written and keeps the reader alert and curious and is packed with such detail that the reader can almost be transported to life in Blackened Cottage.

5 stars
Gripping plot, 10 Nov 2012
Tom1989
Great read- full of suspense and mystery, with a nice twist at the end. Richards' narrative style creates constant tension between the characters and helps them come alive in your mind. Short, sharp chapters make this easy to digest and serve well to convey urgency in the plot.

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Streaky Steve Reading Gladiatrix by Linda Gruchy

31 Dec 2012, 03:50 PM | Post: #10

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RE: Reviews for Blackened Cottage

Blackened Cottage has had six more UK reviews since my last posting, making it a total of 26 reviews (amazon in their infinite wisdom have deleted two otherwise it would be 28). It now has 15 with 5 stars, 10 with 4 stars and 1 with 3 stars.

The two most recent ones amused me in that they show how you the same book can be received in totally different ways:

3 stars
A Nightmare, 27 Dec 2012
This book was like reading a nightmare. Not always in a bad way as the book was well written. Unfortunately the story fell down in lots of ways.Lisbeth's character was complex and this did become clear but not until the very end.
It wasn't a book I enjoyed reading and felt quite relieved to finish it.

5 stars
Really great read, 27 Dec 2012
sarah auger
Fab book couldn't stop reading it
Nice easy read on a evening curled up on sofa with a cuppa and no kids

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