The Dead of Winter

by Chris Priestley

Allen and Unwin. Young Adult, Horror. Paperback RRP $22.99


Guest Reviewer - Anastasia Gonis

Michael is left orphaned and desolate after his mother’s death, his father having died during the war saving the wealthy Sir Stephen Clarendon of Hawton Mere, who has now become Michael’s legal guardian. The boy reluctantly sets off to spend the Christmas holidays at the distant mansion and meet the man who lives instead of his father.

But Michael’s guardian is of no comfort to the grieving child. The inhuman treatment experienced in his youth at the hands of his father, has left him an emotionally damaged man living in a world of his own suffering.

Hawton Mere is a bleak and isolated place; a dark and foreboding house set alone in an endless moor. Michael already feels he has ‘walked into a fog of mystery and whispers’ when he awakes the day after his arrival, still preoccupied by the ghost of a mysterious woman seen by the road.

But something more threatening than the ghostly woman soon makes contact with the boy. It has a presence and a breath, but no body, and carries horror incorporated with it. The countless secrets that Hawton Mere and its inhabitants harbour magnify Michael’s fears. Even the actual building seems to pulse with a life of its own. Learning that he has inherited his father’s abilities to see and hear the dead makes things worse. Michael is determined to find answers to his questions and the reasons for the existence of the terrors housed within the mansion.

Priestley has created another dark, riveting read to follow the outstanding Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth. The story is fast-paced and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. The book is suitable for mature teenage readers that prefer edgy prose accompanied by a fast heartbeat, and who are not afraid of the dark.

The Reading Stack reviewed Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth in May 2010.

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Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth

by Chris Priestley

Allen and Unwin. Young Adult, Horror. Hardback rrp $24.99

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

It is England in the early 1900s. Robert is travelling alone on a train for the first time in his life. He’s glad to get away from his overpowering step-mother whose life talk is filled with superstitions and portents. The other occupants of the carriage he enters are the Major, a farmer, a bishop and a surgeon. The last to enter is a lady dressed totally in white. While the others sleep, she offers to entertain him with tales.

But the train doesn’t seem to move from the tunnel’s mouth and there is no waking up all the snoring occupants.

The tales Robert is told are gripping, macabre, and filled with supernatural happenings. He finds that the storyteller has some place in his life which he can’t identify. He struggles to make sense of what is really happening. Is he part of the stories, or have they affected him in an explicable way. Do parallel worlds really exist?

These are spectacular tales of terror and edgy horror. The extraordinary and imaginative tales with a sinister twist are presented through perfect writing and well-conceived stories. This is the type of work expected by the gifted Priestly who is the author of Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror and Tales of Terror from the Black Ship. He is currently working on a longer ghost story.

This is not everyone’s ideal read, but it is highly addictive and riveting reading. There are eleven chilling tales. The book is beautifully presented in hardcover with a fully illustrated dust jacket in sombre black and white pen and ink. It would suit teenage readers plus, but it comes with a warning. It’s not for the faint-hearted!

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