Welcome to Litsy!

Pine is a gothic thriller genre that starts out interesting and fizzles out in the end. The book doesn‘t feature the disappearance of one of its characters until we are almost 75% through. It feels like the author was having so much fun writing about witchcraft and cartomancy, that she forgot she had to deliver on the thriller/crime and had to solve the mystery. The end feels very rushed and the revelation of the criminal an afterthought

An enjoyable creepy tale in which a young teenager lived with her dad after the early disappearance of her mum. In a close community, there is suspicion around her dad, + Lauren has to manage his drinking as well as bullying at school. When a strange woman appears who no one remembers after being seen, things grow very strange. A disconcerting way to start 2025, and I'm looking forward to more by the author.

Another one for the #hauntedshelf book cover scavenger hunt! This one is for Horns, which I‘m interpreting a wee bit liberally as antlers. I love this Scottish folk horror novel so much.

#skeletoncrew

This was a odd book to read..

3.5

Read for prompts for:

#ReadYourBookshelfChallenge2022
#52BookClubReadingChallenge2022

Dark, haunting, spooky, this is a book of guilt, self-doubt and gossip. 10 years have passed since Lauren's mother disappeared. Lauren is growing up navigating life with a drunk father, school bullies with the kindness of only one or two people in town. She has questions. When her dad drunkenly gives a teenage girl a ride home, blacks out, and the girl goes missing the answers to Lauren's questions come to light.

I love this cover and the debut thriller inside. This was a great novel that intertwined some folk tale aspects with a missing person mystery rooted in reality and it‘s effects on those left behind. I really enjoyed the fantastical elements.

I was so in the mood for a gothic thriller and this hit the spot. It was a bit slow and the ending rather abrupt but some spooky woods at night made for a good story!
Thank you again @jhod for this #jolabokaflod book!

Thank you very much @jhod !
Is it wrong to have chocolate for breakfast….? 🤔
Looking forward to diving in to this book later today!
#jolabokaflod #jolabokaflod2021
Thank you so much for organising @MaleficentBookDragon

On paper this sounded right up my street but unfortunately I just couldn‘t get into it at all and felt like I kept drifting away from the audiobook

Finished finally. This isn‘t a book I‘d normally pick up but I really enjoyed reading it with all its twists and turns.

My girl knows I‘m having a super hard day. Panic attacks caused by past trauma and having to deal with people sparking triggers and I‘m now so flat i can not move. But my girl has me. Thank god this weekend is a gardening weekend.

Two kids still asleep. One out with our support getting her hair dyed…which leaves me and baby cat to have some quiet reading time

After a long hectic morning people int I‘m settling down with lunch and my book.

Second hand shop book haul! 😀 📚

Haven‘t been feeling well due to being heavily pregnant 🤰🏻 I have been reading but not writing reviews, so I thought I‘d write a short one for this book.

Eerie, spooky, and atmospheric however very slow until the end where it suddenly goes super fast. It was an okay read, not amazing but interesting enough to hold my attention.

I wanted more from this. Not a fan of the gothic so was apprehensive but I just feel like it didn't live up to the gothic tag. The end also felt quite rushed, most of the time I was waiting for something to happen then just like that it was all resolved.

They are driving out for guising when they see her.

Next up . . . Getting my book group read in early this time so I don't spend 4 hours reading it the night before 🤦‍♀️

It's creepy but you'd be fine reading this alone in the house late at night. It opens with uncanny happenings in a remote Scottish village ten years after a local woman's unexplained disappearance. When a teenager then goes missing, the tension ought to really ramp up but for me it was an ongoing decrescendo from this point until the end. Maybe I just wanted more of/from the supernatural shenanigans. It's good but not a book that will haunt me.

Hmm... beautiful writing, good Scottish dialect and interesting aspects of pagan rites.
At first I wasn't sure of the young child as narrator but she grew in me.
Excellent twists and a great ending.

Another day, another book!
An intriguing blurb, some spookiness and some atmosphere, set in Scotland countryside.

Really enjoyed this one, full of back story and context. Great story and mystery. 🤓🌲

Ooh #TBRtemptation! This sounds like it would be a perfect candidate for future #ScreamsByMail picks 😍

😂😂🤓🤓

Bear picked this one for me for Christmas, enjoying how it's starting so far 🐻🤓🌲🌲

This book is so pretty! I'm already excited for it 😁 and I love Kinder chocolate... they probably won't make it to boxing day 🤭

The book mark is also super cool! Now I just need to find my nice coloured pens and pencils so I can fill it out😁

Thank you for spoiling me @Cupcake12 and a very merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine 💚🎄

Thank you @MaleficentBookDragon #JolabokaflodSwap #Jolabokaflod

🌲Gripping story from Scotland. Loved the young protagonist Lauren. Quite the gothic thriller.

With creepy, sinister and melancholic happenings and a young girl trying to make sense of it all amidst the unexplained loss of her mother, this book gives you shivers without ever turning into a properly scary horror story. I loved the slow build and desolate village atmosphere. Perfect reading in Halloween week for someone (me) who is scared of proper-scary. This gave me feels of Elmet and Water Shall Refuse Them - both great reads.

This is a slow burner of a story so don‘t expect a fast paced rollercoaster! It‘s beautifully written and vividly and atmospherically depicted. There is more than a hint of the supernatural - it‘s otherworldly and eerie. It‘s ultimately a tale about the effects of grief and how they resonate within a small community. Despite the fact that I found the ending a little odd and maybe a tad rushed, I very much enjoyed it. 4⭐️ #Pigeonhole

#Pigeonhole

I am usually reluctant to recommend books because I always think everyone else is far more intellectually than me and will think my choices a bit crass, but these are #3Books #ThatIveRecommendedToOthers that have all been enjoyed by those others 😊

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

Bk4 of my #MarchUnshelfing #readathon & #challenge is done. I couldn‘t resist this novel either, even though it‘s only been on my shelves a short time. Set in Highlands of Scotland, Lauren is a 10yr old living with her father Niall in a small village after her mother‘s disappearance. Everyone believes she was a witch & that Niall killed her. It was strange, atmospheric & creepy at times, with a large streak of Celtic supernatural. Loved it!

Bk7 of my #FebruaryBookHaul is another gorgeous signed edition. I especially love the tree on the edge. Pine is a thriller/mystery set in a small Highlands village in the middle of a pine forest. Lauren & her father live alone,until one Halloween a woman stumbles out in front of their car. In the morning she‘s gone,but strange things have always happened in their village. But when a local teenager goes missing, Lauren no longer knows who to trust.

Very good supernatural thriller. Set in rural Scotland the remoteness of the setting is very well realised and makes the whole thing so much more unsettling. I had an inkling of how it might turn out but there was enough uncertainty to keep me going. Well worth a read.

I‘ve not read quite as much as I hoped this month but have loved and enjoyed each book. #February2020

A storm outside and coffee, cat and creepy book inside. Blissful morning.

With storm Dennis scheduled to wreak havoc this weekend it feels like the perfect time for something dark and eerie. Having said that, if the electricity goes I may regret this choice.

#Mystery #Eerie #StormDennis

Well, perhaps the best part of a book depository order is forgetting what you ordered until it arrives! #BookLove

This book was “heavier” than I expected. And the ending snuck up on me! I feel like it could have been better and I‘m still kinda thinking “what the what?!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ An amazingly beautiful book, the language flows, taking you along with this eerie and uncanny story. I highly recommend. For full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3179167621

Been looking forward to getting my hands on this. Need a drearier day than this though to start. Also loving that sprayed edges are appearing more often these days.

1/7 #widehorizonsreadathon

Atmospheric, eerie gothic novel set in the north of Scotland. I have family from Scotland and have spent a decent amount of time there and I think this depicted the beautiful, slightly creepy bleak landscape as well as anything I‘ve ever read. Creepy without veering into horror, just magical enough to count as magic realist maybe but not sure, incredible MC - so rare for adults to write children this well.

I love pre-orders, especially when I forget about them; it‘s an exciting little gift to myself.

This sounds like the perfect weekend read — I think I‘ll have to treat myself!!! Plus, it‘s beautiful 😍

I finished reading this yesterday, and it is probably one of my highlights of this months reading - I LOVED it. It‘s so atmospheric, eerie, bordering on slipping into being a horror story (but it‘s not!). It‘s set in a remote Scottish village, and 10 year old Lauren keeps seeing a strange woman - anyone else who sees her immediately forgets they have. And then a teenager goes missing. This book isn‘t what you think it‘ll be. It‘s so much more!

Ticked off another couple of boxes in my #JennyIs30 bingo card, but not at all close to a bingo🙄 @jenniferw88

With reluctance, I‘m giving this a so-so rating. Toon captures brilliantly the claustrophobic nature of a tight-knit community, the haunting landscape around the Scottish Highland village that is the novel‘s setting, and the character of the main character‘s broken, alcoholic father. But I don‘t feel that she fully captured the nature of a 10-year-old child, through whose eyes most of the story is seen.

#CoffeeAndAGoodBook #WhiteCover

What follows is a moody, creepy thriller with a slightly mystical, supernatural edge. With Lauren, nearly 11 years old, who has an interest in tarot and spells, her father‘s grief and heavy drinking and the oppressive, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of the woods, this is a tale of loss, grief and a small community. A gripping, goosebumpy read.

My #WeeklyForecast:

Sample of Donal Ryan‘s next book
Finish my proof copy of Pine by Francine Toon
Start & Finish Sally Rooney‘s Normal People
Start & Finish Laurie Lee‘s Down in the Valley

@Cinfhen