The jungle watches. The dead remember.

The virgin rainforest seems a paradise to Englishman Simon Corbett. A last chance to salvage his career. A final refuge from a terrible secret.

But the jungle is no Eden. It hides secrets of its own. It does not forgive.

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As Simon is drawn deeper into its haunted shadows, he learns to his horror that the past will not stay buried. For there are places in the forest where the line between the living and the dead is thinner than the skin of water.

A terrifying supernatural tale from Sunday Times bestseller Michelle Paver, author of Dark Matter, Thin Air and Wakenhyrst.

My Review

I’ve only read one book by this author – Wakenhyrst – which was brilliant, so I knew this would be too. But oh what an unlikable main character and narrator! Simon Corbett really is a creep and a stalker and the fact that this is set in the early 1970s is no excuse. Things were different then? My era – and no they weren’t.

Simon has never had a relationship before, but he falls head over heels in love with a girl called Penelope, around twenty years his junior. She’s bright, young and fashionable, and while she is happy to have the odd coffee with Simon, she is not looking for a relationship with him. But he won’t let go. We know something awful happened, but we only learn about it gradually throughout the book.

It’s why he fled England to join an archaeological dig for three months in a virgin rainforest in Mexico. It was the home of the Mayans, who left their mark on the jungle, and the Yachikel Indians still live there. But Simon is not interested in archaeology or Mayan superstition – he’s there to collect mantids – hoping to find a new species that will give him tenure at a university. His methods include fogging the great ceiba (kapok) tree, but it kills other forms of wildlife in the process. The Yachikel are not best pleased.

The sense of impending horror is one that creeps slowly and insidiously – it never jumps out at you or provides instant shock value, but it’s there all the same. There were times when Simon and most of his colleagues like Ridley and Birkenshaw were so vile that I even hoped the howler and spider monkeys, which Simon dislikes intently, would get them.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Born in Malawi to a Belgian mother and a father who ran the tiny Nyasaland Times, Michelle Paver moved to the UK when she was three. She was brought up in Wimbledon, and following a Biochemistry Degree from Oxford University, she became a partner in a big City law firm. She gave up the City to follow her long-held dream of becoming a writer. Successfully published as an adult author, the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness (“Wolf Brother”) were her first books for younger readers, followed by her brilliant 5-part series set in the bronze age, Gods and Warriors. On the adult side, her first ghost story, Dark Matter, was a UK bestseller and won massive praise from reviewers and readers alike, as did her supernatural novels, Thin Air and Wakenhyrst.