A review by the_coycaterpillar_reads
Nana by Mark Towse

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 

Nana is seriously original. A beautifully dark rush of a novella. Perfectly pitched, brutal and viscerally entertaining.

Nana’s can be full of wisdom and knowledge, but Nana’s can also be deadly.

Having read so many horror novella’s, the content can be completely hit or miss for me, it usually doesn’t take long to work out if a story is going to work for me. Mark Towse made that decision easier, the first paragraph, hell, the first sentence reeled me in, like a hook in a fish. The seatbelt was engaged, and I was ready for the G-Force to strip my bones dry!

A sense of dread, all encompassing tension made sure that the pages flew by along with the minutes. The characters were introduced, and I had red flags appear clouding my vision, all I could see was red, so would I pay attention or would I say screw it and continue anyway. Red flags be damned, I was a bull, and I was going headfirst!

Mark Towse leads us up an unsuspecting garden path – a beautifully painted front door, window flower boxes with fragrant roses. Little do you know that behind that perfumed scent is the indistinguishable stench of rotting flesh and putrid ooze. It drips from your Nana, her friends and all the old people who live down an unsuspecting street. Mark Towse knows them, is on a first name basis with them, soon you will be too. The real question is though, will you get on Nana Ivy’s goat too?

Olly is preparing to go and visit his Nana Ivy. He is dreading it, to put it mildly. She stinks, she hates modern technology and isn’t a fan of his mum. I mean he isn’t much of a fan of his mum either at the moment. Olly found evidence of his mum cheating on his dad, and he is fuming. He longs for the closeness that he once shared with her – those Saturday afternoon’s spend baking. Now they spend more time avoiding each other. But visiting his Nana should sort everything, or so his dad tells him.

Newhaven Crescent houses a community of old age pensioners that appear to look out for one another. They know everyone’s names, their hobbies, their inside leg measurement. But underneath the friendly surface lies something altogether more sinister. Why is the missing persons connected to the community rising?