BOOK REVIEW | HOME SICK | RHIANNON GRIST

 

BOOK REVIEW | HOME SICK | RHIANNON GRIST

ABOUT THE BOOK

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.

REVIEW

Following an incident at work, Tamsin grabs a cut-price rural getaway off the internet to give herself space to rebuild. Except when she gets there it’s not the secluded retreat she thought it was - it’s a semi. And that means a new neighbour. A neighbour from hell.

What follows is a slow-burn horror that trades jump scares for smothering paranoia, as Grist wrings unease from the everyday, turning shared walls and small town pleasantries into pure dread.

The book works best when we stick close to Tamsin and her efforts to fit in with the locals. Grist nails the claustrophobic pulse of anxiety that Tamsin feels, turning each interaction into a source of unease.  Grist also peppers the story with sharply drawn side characters who add texture to the narrative without ever pulling focus from the main character. Her prose is tight with a steady drip feeding of information that keeps the tension coiled until the end.

Blending folklore and small town horror, Home Sick  becomes a slow, suffocating spiral into paranoia and has a final set piece that brings the book to a satisfying end.