The Needfire by M K Hardy
I would like to thank Jess from Solaris for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Solaris
Published - out now
Price - £7.99 ebook
You are afraid of the border places. You are afraid of the fork in the road.
Fleeing her mistakes in Glasgow for a marriage of convenience, Norah Mackenzie’s new home on an estate far in the north of Scotland is a chance for freedom, a fresh start. But in the dim, draughty corridors of Corrain House, something is very wrong. Despite their warm correspondence, her distant, melancholic husband does not seem to know her. She is plagued by ghost ships on the sea, spectres at the corner of her eye, by winding, grasping roots. Her only possible companion, the housekeeper Agnes Gunn, is by turns unnerving and alluring, and harbours uncanny secrets of her own.
As the foundations crumble beneath her feet, Norah must uncover the truth about Corrain House, her husband, Agnes, and herself, if she is to find the freedom she has been chasing.
When we talk about the gothic novel we are often talking about a sense of atmosphere and a particular place. People caught into an unusual situation they can’t escape. The strange and unusual is no stranger to it so it’s often been a perfect place to blend with fantasy or horror. Now in MK Hardy’s very impressive gothic fantasy The Needfire we have a deliciously engrossing reading experience where the format of the traditional gothic also has some interesting spins.
In 1890 Norah makes a long arduous journey from Glasgow up to the very north of Scotland. A remote place where the land and people are tough with a culture more based on Norse than Celtic tradition. She arrives at Corrain House and in hours is married to the land’s baron Lord Alexander Barland a man she has never met nor spoken to before. It’s more of a chance for Norah to start again and free herself of complications that developed back home. The house sits on a cliff over the sea, Alexander is not the same man as she was writing to for the past year and shows very little interest in her, the house had a strange dynamic with the enigmatic housekeeper Gunn who seems to have an unequal relationship in the household and Norah finds herself magnetically pulled towards. Strange dreams begin to plague Norah, Alexander acts even stranger and Norah picks up the villagers are wary of Corrain House and now she may need to be too.
This is a storytelling feast I was hugely impressed by. Very much dropping us in a compelling first chapter into a very strange situation. Why would someone marry a complete stranger, why is the house so dark and ominous, what is Gunn’s role. Hardy paints these pictures with dark imagery and what comes for me across the story is a world out of balance. Here the Lord is not in charge, the housekeeper appears to be and Norah too starts acting in strange ways this is a compelling key set of mysteries that get picked into.
Norah is a fascinating lead character as we find out she is not at all the pure innocent the gothic had tended to like. She is fleeing a family scandal of bankruptcy but also a romantic relationship not possible to be public. This story has a sapphic focus that is explicit more than the gothic’s tendency for subtext. She knows Alexander does not love her she was just looking for respite and a chance to own her own life. So while he seems not to ignore her unlike the letters we regularly get shown its for her the mystery of why is he so different to the field he seemed to have become.
The other key character is Gunn and I was impressed how Hardy makes this figure enigmatic on her purpose for so long. Initially very much in the background she seems a mix of ally and potential enemy y that makes her take over the page. A sense of power but also with a shadow of humour. The relationship built between Norah and Gunn really simmers with attraction and a sense that neither can resist the other for long. This is where we get a 21st century gothic tale where the power imbalances are ignored as two people finally get to reveal themselves to one another. The key question throughout though is Norah too trusting?
The central mystery uses Scottish history and myth really well. The way landowners took their prizes and cleared estates even in the the 19th century for their own profit is subtly explored and explained. The house escalates with strange events from images on the sea to the more traditional sleepwalking and strange dreams. A very interesting second person narration becomes increasingly ominous and malevolent before the finale leads to revelations, death and traditional disasters. It knows when to be creepy, when to be passionate, intimate and the story is kept tight. It turns at a very good place bar my only issue being I think the characters bare kept from asking a key question as to their purpose for perhaps a few too many months when I think most people would have let curiosity get the better of them. That though was a very minor issue with a story I just hugely enjoyed reading.
The Needfire treads the gothic line beautifully between fantasy and horror well but never too frightening and also embraced its queer characters who get to take centre stage and own their lives themselves which is hugely refreshing. In Hardy a storytelling talent to look out for has entered the scene. Highly recommended!
