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A review by andrew61
Wakening the Crow by Stephen Gregory
3.0
I am really torn about this book as it was a very unsettling horror set in the English Midlands the device of a possessed object (Edgar Allen Poe's baby tooth lost when he was at school in England) and the ominous Crow to great effect as we see the impact upon a family and particularly the gradual descent into madness and obsession by a young father.
The book opens with a prologue in which an antiquarian bookseller gifts Olive Gooch the tooth. The next chapter steps back to an event where Oliver , caring for his troubled daughter Chloe, sees the 7 year old injured in a car accident. Chloe suffers an injury which changes the challenging child to a mute lamb. With compensation Oliver and his wife buy a home in an old church and Oliver sets up a bookshop called Poe's tooth bookshop, but when a mysterious carrion Crow adopts the family the horror ramps up.
I was definitely gripped by the book and the portrayal of a character haunted by something or someone who descends into paranoia, and self neglect is very well done. It definitely had me looking over my shoulder.
My only qualification is that I found the portrayal of Oliver's wife Rosie uncomfortable and somewhat troubling. The narrator, Oliver, seems obsessed with Rosie as big, voluptuous etc and his treatment of her is uncomfortable including deliberately feeding her alcohol, I almost put the book aside as a consequence and felt the characterisation of the female character a negative. This is amplified by Oliver being such an unlikeabke person who is sponging off his wife .
Similarly Chloe and her father's relationship is uncomfortable and again I did not like some of the scenes between them particularly given a later reveal and the amount of time Oliver wanders around naked.
As I say a contradictory book. Definitely a creepy story.
The book opens with a prologue in which an antiquarian bookseller gifts Olive Gooch the tooth. The next chapter steps back to an event where Oliver , caring for his troubled daughter Chloe, sees the 7 year old injured in a car accident. Chloe suffers an injury which changes the challenging child to a mute lamb. With compensation Oliver and his wife buy a home in an old church and Oliver sets up a bookshop called Poe's tooth bookshop, but when a mysterious carrion Crow adopts the family the horror ramps up.
I was definitely gripped by the book and the portrayal of a character haunted by something or someone who descends into paranoia, and self neglect is very well done. It definitely had me looking over my shoulder.
My only qualification is that I found the portrayal of Oliver's wife Rosie uncomfortable and somewhat troubling. The narrator, Oliver, seems obsessed with Rosie as big, voluptuous etc and his treatment of her is uncomfortable including deliberately feeding her alcohol, I almost put the book aside as a consequence and felt the characterisation of the female character a negative. This is amplified by Oliver being such an unlikeabke person who is sponging off his wife .
Similarly Chloe and her father's relationship is uncomfortable and again I did not like some of the scenes between them particularly given a later reveal and the amount of time Oliver wanders around naked.
As I say a contradictory book. Definitely a creepy story.