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stacetew's review
4.0
A brilliant page turner! Really enjoyed it. My first read by this author but I can’t wait to read more!
okiebookworm88's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
barnsey's review
3.0
Hidden Company is the first Sarah England novel I've read. Told through dual timelines of 1893 and 2018, it's an unsettling story but certainly not terrifying.
In 1893 nineteen year old Flora George is banished to a remote Welsh asylum. With her privileged life now a distant memory, the regime is brutal and living conditions squalid. Why has she been abandoned in this wretched place? Before long she senses an evil presence. Her only chance of survival is to get as far away as possible and never return.
In 2018 forty-one year old psychic medium Isobel Lee rents the old asylum gatehouse. The local villagers, suspicious of incomers, don't take kindly to Isobel's curiosity. Far from being a peaceful retreat, she finds herself bombarded by the long-dead spirits of the asylum's residents. With the help of local dark arts practitioner Branwen, Isobel tries to uncover the awful truth of what really happened 125 years ago.
I decided to read Hidden Company based on the author's good reputation and the fantastic cover art. I love all things dark and creepy and at first glance it appeared to be my kind of book. But whilst I enjoyed it, I was expecting far more terror and chills. I wanted to be too scared to turn the lights off at night; too frightened to come out from beneath the bedcovers. Sadly I was neither. Don't get me wrong — it's cleverly written and I thought the dual timelines worked extremely well — but it fell a bit short of the mark for me.
Before I end my review I must mention the totally awesome epilogue. It was this final turn of events that elevated the story and left me thinking WOW! In fact I'm still thinking about that ending several days later. What a brilliant way to finish the book.
Book Source: Purchased copy
Read my review on my blog: https://bit.ly/3jCqkgj
In 1893 nineteen year old Flora George is banished to a remote Welsh asylum. With her privileged life now a distant memory, the regime is brutal and living conditions squalid. Why has she been abandoned in this wretched place? Before long she senses an evil presence. Her only chance of survival is to get as far away as possible and never return.
In 2018 forty-one year old psychic medium Isobel Lee rents the old asylum gatehouse. The local villagers, suspicious of incomers, don't take kindly to Isobel's curiosity. Far from being a peaceful retreat, she finds herself bombarded by the long-dead spirits of the asylum's residents. With the help of local dark arts practitioner Branwen, Isobel tries to uncover the awful truth of what really happened 125 years ago.
I decided to read Hidden Company based on the author's good reputation and the fantastic cover art. I love all things dark and creepy and at first glance it appeared to be my kind of book. But whilst I enjoyed it, I was expecting far more terror and chills. I wanted to be too scared to turn the lights off at night; too frightened to come out from beneath the bedcovers. Sadly I was neither. Don't get me wrong — it's cleverly written and I thought the dual timelines worked extremely well — but it fell a bit short of the mark for me.
Before I end my review I must mention the totally awesome epilogue. It was this final turn of events that elevated the story and left me thinking WOW! In fact I'm still thinking about that ending several days later. What a brilliant way to finish the book.
Book Source: Purchased copy
Read my review on my blog: https://bit.ly/3jCqkgj
iblamewizards's review
2.0
Hidden Company was relatively well written but unfortunately failed to meet my expectations. It started weakly, and despite its mostly strong prose, relied far too heavily on cliche. While the setting was well rendered, the characters were weak, without a true sense of who they were. I was halfway through before I realised that Flora George, one of the main characters wasn't a middle-aged woman. She is meant to be nineteen years old, but she was written in a way that made me think she was far older.
At times it felt like Hidden Company had bitten off more than it could chew. It had tried to cram too much into the plot that it lost track of where it could go. It tried to be supernatural, but still have the characters try to rationalise everything. They actively engage with paranormal experiences, but always attempt to rationalise certain things, making the end a bit wishy-washy. It's a shame because the final twist could have been really affecting. It was potentially clever but was betrayed by the poor development of the supernatural elements of the scenes set in the modern-day. Not to mention the fact that is was preceded by one of the worst moments of info-dump I've ever come across. It all amounted to, not a terrible reading experience, but a relatively lacklustre one. I was invested enough to keep reading, but not sufficiently invested not to skim read.
Combined with some glaringly repeated writing mistakes like "speeded" rather than "sped" and "disorientated" rather than "disoriented" I was left thoroughly underwhelmed by Hidden Company. There is also an undercurrent of Anglocentricsm throughout the whole novel. Wales and the Welsh are regularly described as dark, backward, and sinister, while the English protagonist is the one who saves the day and sees things for how they really are. I doubt it was intentional, but it's certainly something I noticed while reading. Then, when the main character said that she "popped a couple of paracetamol" to "send her into oblivion for a while," I nearly threw my Kindle across the room. That's not what paracetamol does, and it was those kinds of mistakes and biases that just came together to make the whole book feel forced.
While Hidden Company may be a good enough read for a rainy day when you have a few hours to spare (and nothing else on your bookshelf), it certainly isn't anything to write home about. It wasn't new. It wasn't original. It was disjointed, had weak characterisation, and had a severely under-developed plot. Thank goodness I got it free on Prime Reading because if I'd paid money for it, I would have been more disappointed than I already am.
At times it felt like Hidden Company had bitten off more than it could chew. It had tried to cram too much into the plot that it lost track of where it could go. It tried to be supernatural, but still have the characters try to rationalise everything. They actively engage with paranormal experiences, but always attempt to rationalise certain things, making the end a bit wishy-washy. It's a shame because the final twist could have been really affecting. It was potentially clever but was betrayed by the poor development of the supernatural elements of the scenes set in the modern-day. Not to mention the fact that is was preceded by one of the worst moments of info-dump I've ever come across. It all amounted to, not a terrible reading experience, but a relatively lacklustre one. I was invested enough to keep reading, but not sufficiently invested not to skim read.
Combined with some glaringly repeated writing mistakes like "speeded" rather than "sped" and "disorientated" rather than "disoriented" I was left thoroughly underwhelmed by Hidden Company. There is also an undercurrent of Anglocentricsm throughout the whole novel. Wales and the Welsh are regularly described as dark, backward, and sinister, while the English protagonist is the one who saves the day and sees things for how they really are. I doubt it was intentional, but it's certainly something I noticed while reading. Then, when the main character said that she "popped a couple of paracetamol" to "send her into oblivion for a while," I nearly threw my Kindle across the room. That's not what paracetamol does, and it was those kinds of mistakes and biases that just came together to make the whole book feel forced.
While Hidden Company may be a good enough read for a rainy day when you have a few hours to spare (and nothing else on your bookshelf), it certainly isn't anything to write home about. It wasn't new. It wasn't original. It was disjointed, had weak characterisation, and had a severely under-developed plot. Thank goodness I got it free on Prime Reading because if I'd paid money for it, I would have been more disappointed than I already am.
jeanne25's review
2.0
I picked this book because of the cover. So many times, I was tempted to quit. I have found that I tend to speed read when pushing myself to finish a book that I can't quite condemn to the DNF list. Grammatical errors tend to trip me up, forcing me to back up, reread and figure out what was meant. The author often used excessive commas and hyphens when breaking the sentence into two or three sentences would have read clearer. There were also many, oh so many, fragmented sentences. What kept me reading, despite the repetitiveness, was the 1893 section about Flora. I would almost swear that two different people wrote the two different timelines. Flora's account was a bit cliche and not terribly original but yet it was interesting. Isobel (2018) was simply illogical, the conversations forced and naive. I really disliked these portions of the story and hurried to get through them. I actually liked the ending to Flora's story but wished I had quit at that 25% mark based on the ending to Issy's story. I wish that the entire book had reflected the talent shown in Flora's sections. The book just wasn't for me.
aconitecafe's review
4.0
The creepiness of this story intensified as it progressed. By the end I had chills with the last scene.
I loved the two separate timelines that we were flipping back and forth between. Flora's storyline was much more personal, sucked me in more than Isobels though. Not sure if that had to do with the 1st / 3rd switching.
There were a few questions that would have made the ending hit harder had they been answered. Some links in the present and the past that I would have liked to have read about.
But over all, if you love a good paranormal thriller, this is a great quick read.
I loved the two separate timelines that we were flipping back and forth between. Flora's storyline was much more personal, sucked me in more than Isobels though. Not sure if that had to do with the 1st / 3rd switching.
There were a few questions that would have made the ending hit harder had they been answered. Some links in the present and the past that I would have liked to have read about.
But over all, if you love a good paranormal thriller, this is a great quick read.
nirnroot's review
3.0
“Do you smell sulphur?” she asks. “No. Diane, there is no devil. Listen to me, you must know the truth of that - deep in your heart? That there is no devil – only humans and the evil deeds they do.”
The darkest most disturbing horror I've read yet and also one of the most gripping. The protagonists were enjoyably colourful archetypes and the prose teemed with lucid sensory details which heightened the terror and suspense throughout, without ever being gratuitous or disrupting the pace and made it a pretty addictive read. But that was the problem for me. I didn't want it to end. Definitely not where it did anyway.
There are ghosts, Welsh fairies, mental illnesses, and demonic entities contained in 300 pages of two oscilating points of view which don't significantly convene, so I don't know what ending wouldn't have left me feeling lost now it's over; all I can say is that there were just some questions I really hoped would have answers so when that didn't happen, this novel just left me feeling more hollow than haunted.
That said, I still won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone prepared for an intriguing thriller with a balanced blend of spine-chilling atmosphere and deep pathos, and I'm anxious to try another of S.E. England's works as soon as I can.
The darkest most disturbing horror I've read yet and also one of the most gripping. The protagonists were enjoyably colourful archetypes and the prose teemed with lucid sensory details which heightened the terror and suspense throughout, without ever being gratuitous or disrupting the pace and made it a pretty addictive read. But that was the problem for me. I didn't want it to end. Definitely not where it did anyway.
There are ghosts, Welsh fairies, mental illnesses, and demonic entities contained in 300 pages of two oscilating points of view which don't significantly convene, so I don't know what ending wouldn't have left me feeling lost now it's over; all I can say is that there were just some questions I really hoped would have answers so when that didn't happen, this novel just left me feeling more hollow than haunted.
That said, I still won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone prepared for an intriguing thriller with a balanced blend of spine-chilling atmosphere and deep pathos, and I'm anxious to try another of S.E. England's works as soon as I can.
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