Blood Harvest

Starred review from April 26, 2010
In Bolton’s superb third thriller, the Fletchers—mother Alice, father Gareth, 10-year-old Tom, six-year-old Joe, and two-year-old Millie—receive an icy welcome on moving to isolated Heptonclough, England. When Tom swears he sees a young girl watching him from the shadows, everyone assumes it’s his overactive imagination or maybe local kids playing a joke. But when one such prank puts Millie’s life in danger, the Rev. Harry Laycock, a vicar who’s also new to the area, suspects something more sinister might be at work. Through Dr. Evi Oliver, a psychiatrist, Harry meets a patient of Evi’s, Gillian Royle, who’s still distraught over the death of her young daughter in a mysterious house fire three years earlier. Harry soon discovers disturbing links between the death of Gillian’s daughter and the fates of two other girls. Bolton (Awakening) expertly balances the gothic supernatural elements with a crackling psychological plot, leaving readers breathless until the last page.