Matilda’s Retreat by Catherine Cavendish
I would like to thank Crossroad Press for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Crossroads Press
Published – Out Now
Price - £7.31 hardback £3.69 ebook
The house kept its secrets – until someone disturbed it
Alone and isolated on a windswept moor, the centuries’ old building had seen its fair share of owners and more than its quota of dark legends when Lynn Schofield and her husband visited their friends there. From the moment they cross the threshold, it’s clear there is something very wrong here. Behind the walls is a house unlike any other and the horrors it has witnessed are embedded in its very fabric, ready and waiting for the next victim.
Decades later, another couple own the now ruinous house. For Diana, her initial reluctance to move in soon takes a leap forward when she sees something that shouldn’t be there. But as major renovations proceed – and the library starts to reveal its secrets – her mounting fears prove to be only the beginning of her nightmare.
Soon, she will discover the legends of Matilda’s Retreat are not consigned to the annals of history, as her life changes forever.
Sometimes I love horror for its insights into the human psyche, sometimes I want how it takes our fears and gives us new perspectives on them and yet sometimes I just want to experience something….nasty. Horror is sometimes about going on the rollercoaster and knowing at some point you’re going to be dropped in the dark and you just have to hope you’ll get off the train in one piece. In catherine Cavendish’s new horror novella Matilda’s Retreat we have a isolated house in the remote Yorkshire Moorland which offers a variety of couples a new future that soon appears to be far bleaker than they were hoping for.
In 1997 Lynn and her husband Pete have decided to visit one o her oldest friends Terri and her husband Keith in their new Yorkshire home. The impressive house with spectacular stained-glass windows has taken Keith in particular as a true project to throw himself in. Lynn though finds Terri looking worried and apprehensive. As the day turns into evening there isa growing sense that something is very wrong with her old friends and slowly Lynn finds this house known locally as Matilda’s retreat has a dark and bloody history stretching back centuries. Another dark chapter is about to unfold.
In 2025 Diana finds herself shocked when her beloved husband announces he has found the perfect new home to be their forever home. He sees the possibilities for a new amazing restoration project, but Diana cannot warm to this strange isolated place the locals call Matilda’s Retreat and a growing sense she is being watched and increasingly feels she is danger.
One House, two couples and a constant tale of disaster await
Cavendish creates a fascinating nasty little tale with a very neat piece of construction. Initially we get a short sharp shock with Lynn’s story being very much two people falling into a nightmare not of their own making. The horror initially here is when you realise a couple you think you know well clearly have secrets that they’ve been hiding from the world and possibly even each other. That then gets overladen with a neat creation of gothic horror with spectral appearances, horrible historical stories long hidden and then a full-on nightmare unfolds. It is extremely effective and the pacing works well to underline how bad a situation Lynn has fallen into really is.
We then get a time jump through which Cavendish manages to create a second longer story that while echoing Lynn’s tale has enough differences to avoid a sense of a repetition. If Lynn is a sudden nightmarish descent at high speed, then this is a more like slowly realising that the pot you’re in has been getting far too hot and it is now very hard to escape from. Here it’s the horror of finding your partner is not quite who you think they were with Will’s unusual obsession with house and they that way he dismisses Diana feels increasingly shocking and cruel. We feel Diana’s pain and her increasing anxiety that this house is dangerous. Throw in visions and a malevolent sprit in a nun’s garb and things are not getting any easier!
The longer tale here allows Cavendish to expand upon why Matilda’s Retreat has such a bad reputation and why this house may ne much more supernatural than anyone suspects. Horror fans may not be surprised that things go quickly south but it is delivered well enough than like that roller-coaster I mentioned you will have fun watching bad things happening to people just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will warn you though that there are references to sexual violence and child death that are both dark but at the same time never delivered just for shock effect. Foretaste hula charcters who actually turn into the most dangerous ones here which surprised me.
This is a horror story that knows it wants the reader to not relax into the story and feel a sense of fear. Well worth a look if you fancy something creepy
