The Dead of Winter

February 1, 2012

Gr 7-10-In his first novel-length, gothic horror tale, Priestley pays homage to Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" and in the process crafts a taut thriller with a foreboding setting and appropriately creepy atmosphere. Like the classic, this story features an isolated, imposing manor house that produces an inexplicable sense of dread in the narrator. Hawton Mere, like Poe's titular mansion, is inhabited by a brother afflicted by a debilitating psychological condition and a sister. But unlike Poe's unnamed narrator, Michael Vyner is not a willing visitor. Recently orphaned, he discovers that he is now the ward of Sir Stephen, the lord of Hawton Mere. Michael's father gave his life saving Sir Stephen in battle in Afghanistan and he is repaying that debt by caring for the boy. Upon arrival, Michael is nearly overwhelmed by a sense of impending doom. He is also afflicted by apparitions and strange noises. He is soon thrust into the mystery of the death of Sir Stephen's late wife and the origins of the poltergeistlike spirit that terrorizes him and his guardian. Though the story begins like Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist (S & S, 2009), with a narrator writing years after the fact, Priestley stays truer to the traditional genre, focusing on atmospherics and psychology rather than blood and gore. Students who want a break from the graphic violence of modern horror stories will enjoy this short volume.-Anthony C. Doyle, Livingston High School, CA

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2012
Grades 7-10 I had never known evil, Michael writes. But when his mother dies, leaving him parentless, he finds himself the ward of the wealthy and eccentric Sir Stephen Clarendon. At Sir Stephen's palatial estate, deep in the countryside, Michael quickly finds himself in dangerdeadly danger that manifests itself as strange spirits and things that go bump in the night. What are these haunting, unseen presences, and are they as malevolent as they seem? Who is the mysterious woman in white, and what has driven Sir Stephen to near madness? All these questions are answered over the course of this chilling story. In the meantime, Priestley (Mister Creecher, 2011) has written a nicely atmospheric Victorian gothic mystery that readers will find diverting, and that only the most dauntless will dare read after dark.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)