$3.77 at the Parkville Bookworm, hardbackI loved this book! Ghosts, witches, and goblins, oh my. Well, Hiding From the Light, by Great Britain's Barbara Erskine, doesn't actually goblins, but it does have ghosts and witches.Set in Essex, England, circa 1996, the book revolves around Emma, a 30-something Londoner who moves to the countryside after she sees an ad for a house and has to have it, and Mike, the town's priest.Shortly after moving into her new house, Emma starts having nightmares about people tortured and killed simply for being accused of being witches; most of her nightmares revolve around two women in particular, an elderly woman named Liza and Sarah, the child she cared for and who tried to defend Liza but ended up being accused and almost killed herself. Sarah swore vengeance on the Witchfinder General, Anthony Hopkins, and pursued him, some 350 years after their deaths. Both Mike and Emma hear voices that nobody else seems to have telling them to kill each other, and endure nightmares and sleepless nights. Eventually, the town's other residents suffer from nightmares and voices nobody else seems to hear.Hiding From the Light was so good I couldn't put it down, even with a bookstore to run, an attention-hungry, energetic dog who wouldn't take no for an answer when he begged for a play session, and mounds of laundry to attend to.
I was given this book by a friend as part of a bunch which he thought I could take to my local OBCZ. This one caught my eye as it is set relatively locally to me and concerns Matthew Hopkins, notorious WitchFinder General, who is quite an interesting character.Barbara Erskine does a good job of intertwining the stories of two periods, Hopkins' own lifetime and the modern day, into one gripping narrative. It was interesting to see in the Author's Note at the back of the book that she had some input from Phil Rickman, one of my favourite authors, as the story had some similarities to Rickman's Merrily Watkins series although it was not as dark. In fact part of me wished that Rickman had written the story as I think that he would have handled it very well.My only real reservation was the depiction of the Wiccan, Lindsey Clark, which I felt was rather unsympathetic; I was a little surprised to read in the Author's Note of the 'charming and without exception kindly witches and Wiccans who have talked about their craft', I wonder what they made of Lyndsey.
What do You think about Hiding From The Light (2003)?
Yes, there are ghosties and beasties and things that go bump in the night! What fun! Safe to read at home, but if I was staying at a hotel/home/building that was reputed to be haunted, I'd save this one for later. It took a good couple of hundred pages to set the scenes and the characters, but then things took off and I couldn't put the book down. In some ways I can see cutting some of those characters and still keep the main story, but I loved the whole book anyway. Don't let the page count deter you, the paperback was 700+ but with so many short chapters, leaving half pages blank leading into the next chapter, it was a very quick, albeit enjoyable read.
—Misfit
Nakonec to nebylo tak zlé ani černobílé, jak se to zdálo zhruba do poloviny knihy. Potom už byl příběh uvěřitelnější a zajímavější. Ten zvrat ke konci se mi líbil, taky pomstychtivá Sarah, stejně jako Bill Standing, ten byl pro mě asi nejzajímavější osobností z celé knihy, pohádkový dědeček a jeho kouzelné bytosti. I když jsem věděla od začátku, kdo s kým bude a iritovaly mě některé pasáže, bylo to dobře napsané, četlo se to jedním dechem. Iritující bylo např. když ta "přeúžasná" hlavní hrdinka musela asi 3krát po sobě rádobyvtipně sdělit pastorovi, že je jeho osudová žena, to jsem si trochu říkala, kde to jsme? V 50 odstínech šedi? Ale jinak to bylo dobré.
—Pavla
Very well written book. Gets you hooked in an instant with various interesting characters and some unexpected scenes.Strange things are happening over in Mistley and Manningtree by a strange evil mist and only one person knows how to take care of it. Emma is attracted to leave London for the country by Liza's a former witch's cottage. Mike the new vicar is having trouble with his layreader Judith, who wants to take care of the parish herself. They are all drawn in by the places' history of a witchhunter and the tortured witches. But there is also a modern day witch Lyndsey who meddles where she shouldn't.It is one good read.
—Suesan
