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eshalliday 's review for:
The Dark Between The Trees
by Fiona Barnett
'There were more things to fear than ghosts.'
I love it when a book opens with immediacy, and 'The Dark between the Trees' by Fiona Barnett is snappy in its first words. The novel runs two parties’ narratives parallel in a dual timeline, as they enter Moresby Wood; one group of male characters in 1643, and one group of female characters in the present day.
Unfortunately, the relationships between the women at the opening of the novel lack clarity and in fact, well into the story, the five characters remain fairly obfuscated, which prevented me from carrying that immediacy through with me as the chapters began to shape the narrative. The same, sadly, can be said for Captain Davies' men in 1643. The two sets of characters that Barnett presents side-by-side in the novel ultimately, failed to engage me throughout. The two timeframes between which Barnett alternates rapidly didn’t give me long enough with either group to become absorbed in their storyline.
Early acceleration of tension and suspense is done with accomplished authorial skill: 'Sue stood up very suddenly...'; 'did you see it... The other wood'. The book is well written, the language is crisp, the descriptions well-judged and the premise decently researched. Nonetheless, there just isn't enough to 'plump for' in ‘The Dark between the Trees’. There is attention to detail given in scene-setting sections:
I was ready for this to be a gripping supernatural horror, but the plot and the narrative are as unresolved as the historical mystery at the centre of the novel. There is the promise of climax; there is a lot of suggestion and build-up, which was enjoyable to a certain extent, in itself:
I am sad to conclude that 'The Dark Between the Trees' would have been a brilliant, remarkable read, had it been half the length. As it is, it was too tame and drawn-out for me. There was very little satisfaction to be had here.
However, my sincere thanks are due to Solaris at Rebellion Publishing for an advanced digital copy of this title through Netgalley. Citations are subject to change in the final published copy.
I love it when a book opens with immediacy, and 'The Dark between the Trees' by Fiona Barnett is snappy in its first words. The novel runs two parties’ narratives parallel in a dual timeline, as they enter Moresby Wood; one group of male characters in 1643, and one group of female characters in the present day.
Unfortunately, the relationships between the women at the opening of the novel lack clarity and in fact, well into the story, the five characters remain fairly obfuscated, which prevented me from carrying that immediacy through with me as the chapters began to shape the narrative. The same, sadly, can be said for Captain Davies' men in 1643. The two sets of characters that Barnett presents side-by-side in the novel ultimately, failed to engage me throughout. The two timeframes between which Barnett alternates rapidly didn’t give me long enough with either group to become absorbed in their storyline.
Early acceleration of tension and suspense is done with accomplished authorial skill: 'Sue stood up very suddenly...'; 'did you see it... The other wood'. The book is well written, the language is crisp, the descriptions well-judged and the premise decently researched. Nonetheless, there just isn't enough to 'plump for' in ‘The Dark between the Trees’. There is attention to detail given in scene-setting sections:
Alice was staring into space. Kim prised the tin mug from her hands and she shook her head, the train of thought visibly dissipating.Regrettably, though, the novel dips with quite a sheer drop after the bright pace of the opening falls away. The middle languishes in a slump, and the only comment that I can make about the central two-quarters is that I began wondering whether the novel should have been a short story.
They split into their tents not long afterwards: Kim, Helly and Sue to the larger one, Alice and Nuria to the smaller. Just before she turned the torch off, in her sleeping bag, Alice said very quietly, “Did you see it?”
“See what?”
“The other wood.”
“What do you mean?”
But Alice shook her head and turned the light out. “Goodnight, Nuria. Sleep well.”
Outside, the leaves of the gigantic oak tree that linked them to the past rustled in the ghost of a breeze.
I was ready for this to be a gripping supernatural horror, but the plot and the narrative are as unresolved as the historical mystery at the centre of the novel. There is the promise of climax; there is a lot of suggestion and build-up, which was enjoyable to a certain extent, in itself:
‘The most uncomfortable of somethings are those that might easily be nothing, and that’s how it was here. There seemed to be a low hum in the air, or perhaps it was only inside Harper’s head – either way it reminded him of wasps. After a little longer he started to think he was seeing dark spots blink in and out in the thick greyness – like the spots you see if you stare too long at the sun and then look away, in the corners of his vision.’After the middle-section slump, Barnett works on a series of repeated motifs and signs across the two timelines, which is enchanting at the time, but ultimately unrewarding, as the repetition fails to amount to much:
‘Overhead, the canopy of trees seemed to be bearing down on them, steering them forwards. Out of the corner of her eye, something flickered, or moved.’
‘If any of them had been looking round them in the trees of the middle distance, they might have seen that flickering, once or twice, as if the trunks of far-off trees were the flames of candles, casting light intermittently on whatever they were near to, and occasionally lighting up something completely different. They would have seen the greenery grow and shrink before their eyes, sometimes far, sometimes closer, less like trees themselves and more like the reflections of trees on water. And maybe if they had seen those, then the ground beneath them would have felt less solid, more changeable, or negotiable, and they would have caught sight maybe two or three hundred yards away of the mouth of a cave in the woods, flickering in and out of sight, just every now, every then.’I wanted to read either one, or the other, of the two storylines here. The novel doesn't sustain the same interest across both, and it is this puffing-up of the book by doubling the narrative that makes the middle section lacklustre through repetition and lack of action. The group of characters in the present is ostensibly trying to solve the mystery of what happened to the 1643 group, but I would have been happier just reading a short story or novella about the group of female researchers solving the historical mystery (or not!), without the distraction of a narrative from the viewpoint of the soldiers as their expedition unfolded.
I am sad to conclude that 'The Dark Between the Trees' would have been a brilliant, remarkable read, had it been half the length. As it is, it was too tame and drawn-out for me. There was very little satisfaction to be had here.
However, my sincere thanks are due to Solaris at Rebellion Publishing for an advanced digital copy of this title through Netgalley. Citations are subject to change in the final published copy.