The Silence

April 29, 2013
Rayne continues to mix eerie hauntings and witty protagonists in her enjoyable third neogothic mystery (after The Sin Eater) starring widowed antiques dealer Nell West and her paramour, university professor and children’s book author Michael Flint. When Nell is asked by the West family to evaluate isolated Stilter House, she and her young daughter, Beth, discover mysterious piano noises and a sordid history. Nell’s late husband, Brad, spent much of his youth at Stilter House, and may have encountered the supernatural while he was there. Meanwhile, Michael gets a phone call from one of Brad’s relatives suggesting that something is wrong, and he follows Nell to the country. Documents and letters about the possibly deranged builder Samuel Burlap, who was involved with the West family in the early 1900s, drive a good part of the novel. Rayne continues to update the classic haunted house story in ways that are faithful to the genre’s roots while centering the action on a contemporary couple whose growth ably moves the series forward.

May 30, 2011
A gnarled haunted house story spanning centuries makes a promising supernatural venture by crime fiction author Rayne (What Lies Beneath). Literature professor Michael Flint pays a visit to a crumbling old house recently inherited by his friends the Harpers and encounters a terrifying presence. The Harpers' young daughter sees the spirit in her dreams, as does the daughter of recently widowed antiques dealer Nell West. Michael and Nell embark on a harried search through local folklore, moldering records, and the house's mysterious past before the children become part of a decades-old tragedy. Rayne's crisp and fast-paced writing deftly combines sharp characters, obscure legend, the panorama of 20th-century history, subtle romance, and even subtler melancholy, turning the picked-over bones of the haunted house story into something fresh and frequently terrifying. Even an abrupt and too-easy ending doesn't diminish the book's spine-tingling chill, merely leaving readers hungry for a sequel.

June 15, 2011

A haunted house holds past secrets that endanger present visitors.

Americans Liz and Jack Harper are thrilled to inherit an old house in the tiny Shropshire town of Marston Lacy. They ask their British friend Michael Flint, a junior don at Oxford's Oriel College, to check it out. When Michael takes several pictures of the imposing structure, called Charect House, he's slightly unsettled by a figure he sees in an upper window. At this point, the diary accounts (circa 1988) of Dr. Alice Wilson, a Special Investigator for Psychic Research, begin to be woven into the narrative, along with the perspective of Nell West, a young widow new to Marston Lacy. Nell, who has a small antiques business in town, has been hired by the Harpers to help furnish the house. She visits Charect with her young daughter Beth, whom she has been careful to shield from the world. Upon discovering Wilson's diary, Nell learns that the house's name has been changed. Once Michael and Nell's paths cross, they begin a very muted flirtation. Beth begins having violent nightmares and one day vanishes from school. Beside herself, Nell rushes to the police station. At length, Michael finds a similar case from decades ago. Further research stretches all the way back to the late 19th century. Dark episodes from the past counterpoint Michael and Nell's present-day attempts to save Beth.

With this eighth novel (House of the Lost, 2010, etc.), which boasts a refreshingly retro flavor, Rayne spins eerie yarns within yarns like a latter-day Isak Dinesen or Wilkie Collins.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 15, 2011

Asked to check on an old house unexpectedly inherited by American friends, English professor Michael Flint travels to the Shropshire town of Marston Lacy and finds a property that seems to harbor a life of its own. When he makes the acquaintance of antiques dealer Nell West and discovers that her young daughter and the daughter of Charect House's new owner suffer from the same nightmares, Flint suspects that both girls are in danger from an entity that might be a ghost or something even more menacing. VERDICT Rayne (House of the Lost; What Lies Beneath) delivers another intriguing tale of psychological and supernatural suspense, working the contrast between the idyllic English countryside and the dark histories of its inhabitants into a delicious tension. Fans of haunted-house fiction and psychological suspense should particularly enjoy the final twist.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011
Now approaching her third decade of a successful writing career, Rayne has established herself as one of the UK's most reliable sources of chilling horror fiction. Her latest novel embraces many common motifs from classic ghost tales: a haunted house, recurring nightmares, and hushed-up family secrets. Yet in Rayne's capable hands, the story of Charect House, a dilapidated Victorian house in Shropshire, inherited by a surprised New Jersey couple, becomes a chilling mystery from another era. Oxford professor Michael Flint's own unnerving encounter with the house and its spectral inhabitants is arranged when his American friends ask him to appraise its condition as a possible vacation home. While investigating the source of the shambling, chanting figure Michael observes, he meets a recently widowed antiques dealer, Nell West, whose nightmare-afflicted daughter is apparently abducted by the spirit. Together, the pair uncovers a gruesome story of madness and murder involving Charect House's previous inhabitants, as revealed in several dusty, long-hidden diaries. Once again Rayne delivers with an inventively plotted, goose-bumps-inducing ghost story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2013
Antiques dealer Nell West and her friend, Oxford literature professor Michael Flint, return in another spooky outing. Nell, who was recently widowed, is going through her late husband's family home. Once upon a time, an older home stood here, one that was the center of a scandala woman poisoned her husbandand the property is said to be haunted. Nell soon begins to notice strange goings-on, and it isn't long before a century-old evil manifests itself in the present day. Each of the three West novels explores the same themethe sins of the past absolutely refusing to stay in the pastbut with enough variation to keep us from feeling like we're just reading the same book again and again. Nell, too, is a sympathetic and likable protagonist (Michael Flint is more of a supporting character than a costar), and, as always, Rayne keeps the story moving at a steady but not breathless pace. Fans of this veteran author (her first book appeared, under a pseudonym, 30-odd years ago) will be well pleased.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2013
Beautiful music lulls and lures the unsuspecting listener to the brink of danger and the secret of a century-old crime. Antiques dealer Nell West has been hired to evaluate the contents of her late husband Brad's childhood home, Stilter House. Besides fueling her professional interest in the remote Derbyshire Peaks home, the assignment also provides an opportunity to give her young daughter, Beth, a clearer picture of her father. Nell scarcely worries about gossip that the house is haunted, though given her recent adventures (The Sin Eater, 2012, etc.), she has reason to. Inside Stilter, Nell faintly hears piano music and assumes that Beth has been playing, but the keyboard is securely locked. Meanwhile, Nell's lover, Michael Flint, who must wait until the end of term at Oriel College to join her, receives an agitated phone call from elderly Emily West warning that Nell and Beth mustn't spend the night at Stilter. Even if he took this warning seriously, it wouldn't matter, since Nell has no phone service there. As she looks through the house, she finds various papers--letters, court statements, diary entries--that offer information about servants abruptly leaving after only one day of work, the eerie music she'd heard and, worst of all, a series of unspeakable crimes against children. Armed with greater understanding, Michael joins his lover at Stilter. But will he be too late to help? Rayne's third Nell West ghost story perfects the craft of deftly chosen details, simmering suspense and chilling surprises, all woven into a quiet, elegant narrative.

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