Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist
I would like to thank Solaris for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Solaris
Published – out Now
Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 eBook
“The symmetry should have tipped me off.”
After a violent incident at work, Tamsin goes looking for a fresh start in a remote cottage far away from her old life. Here she could make real friends, find a job she loves, become a whole new person, even.
But the solitary cottage is actually a semi-detached, with only a thin wall separating her from a total stranger. Her neighbour is an enigma. Dowdy one moment, vivacious the next, but always wearing an unnerving smile. Tamsin can’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong with her, especially when she starts experiencing disturbances in her own home.
As the locals share strange stories about her house, and her barely contained paranoia spirals out of control, Tamsin begins to suspect that the past she was so desperate to escape might never let her go.
The fresh start is a rite of passage I suspect familiar in some way for everyone. There comes a time be it the start of the New Year, a new job or relationship say where we really want things to go differently this time. Sometimes that really works and sometimes it does not. In Rhiannon Grist’s excellent modern folk horror novel Home Sick takes the idea of a fresh start by moving to the countryside and skilfully combines it with the folklore of when other things want to be the new you instead to create a compelling read.
Tamsin arrives at her new cottage in the remote Scottish countryside and ide immediately disappointed to find her cottage is actually more a semi-detached with a reclusive and then noisy neighbour. She must battle a lack of furniture, re-establishing job opportunities and trying to impress the locals. None of which is going to plan but then her mysterious neighbour starts to be wherever Tamsin is and soon Tamsin soon realises not all the myths of this place are just there to scare the tourists for the amusement of locals.
I was hugely impressed wit this novel as Grist has found a new angle on a very old set of myths that fear not, I have no intention of spoiling for you. However, what I loved was how this all feds into a central theme of someone working themselves out. Tamsin is our narrator and immediately we sense she is not telling us or herself something. We may understand the idea of going away from noisy cities, but wouldn’t you normally have furniture when you move? Clearly something here is not quite right and while some horror stories like to have the perfect innocent heroine fall into evil’s clutches there is something about a much more relatable flawed human being falling into a story here perhaps their flaws are attracting something to play like flies to honey.
Tasmin is a wonderfully complex lead character. Smart, a sense of humour but also a huge introvert who struggles to quite connect with people as she would like to. For those of us who are sky and think humans can be very strange there will be many painful but accurate moments such as arriving at new office jobs and finding out that the new team are yet again not that interested in you, meeting strangers, getting small talk right and recalling how that can build up resentment and hurt. Why isn’t there a nice instruction manual for being human?
As such dropping Tamsin into a horror story feels unfair, hasn’t she suffered enough (sadly gentle reader that would be a No) and yet Tamsin is quite unpredictable too. Grist cunningly sets up a huge turning point in the story where Tamsin does something that you would not have immediately expected and that really sets up the rest of the story but also explores the theme of how Tamsin various hidden issues are in many ways perhaps the bigger danger to herself and others than whatever may be following her. This looming confrontation is not as mismatched as we initially thought.
The setting really helps we feel the remoteness of the countryside being so strangely quiet and remote but also Grist has sensibly made this a modern tale so rather than the usual grumpy locals we have a variety of incomers such as the gay couple Rowan and Fergus who become key to the story, plus an assortment of people all trying just to make a living and not get too annoyed at tourists bringing in the income for the year. The feel is pleasantly a recognisable 21st century place in the UK from local teens to strange pensioners and so when the uncanny arrives their reactions all feel suitably relatable as well.
It all comes together in a really impressive finale that takes the old school logic and structure of confronting the supernatural with a person also having to come to face their biggest fears. The ultimate resolution is unexpected and yet incredibly satisfying. Grist continues to a be a writer that impresses and I can’t wait to see what future stories they have to tell. In the meantime, I strongly recommend this for summer chills and always remember where you put that axe!
