What Moves the Dead

I’d had this sitting on the bookshelf for a while after a recommendation from a colleague and thought it was time to get around to it as it’s the spooky time of year.

Was gripped from the very start all the way through to the end and two bus trips and a lunch hour later it was finished! But still lingering strongly.

This is such a gothic treat without the stumbling of the language from the period, well rounded characters really makes this retelling of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher stand head and shoulders over similar retellings.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Alex Easton, a ‘sworn’ soldier in a land of multiple pronouns who is summoned by a letter from a friend to visit them in their illness and what they find is way beyond what they were expecting or could fathom.

The gothic nature of the tale is so well realised, using such sparse but evocative description to realise the barrenness of the landscape and the decrepitude of the manse that they all find themselves in that you almost feel yourself there.

All the characters in the story were well fleshed out even though some had so few lines and scenes, you still felt as though you knew them, and all balanced each other so well. There was no need for any more but you would have felt the absence of any of them.

This is so much more than a simple retelling, it adds so much flesh to the original and ramps up the tension and horror to another level.

This is my favourite horror of the year so far well worth the read.