BOOK REVIEW | DARK IS WHEN THE DEVIL COMES | DAISY PEARCE

 BOOK REVIEW | DARK IS WHEN THE DEVIL COMES | DAISY PEARCE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hazel is twenty-seven, and her life is falling apart. As an amateur mycologist - someone who studies mushrooms - Hazel's hobby takes her to some dark places, but following a traumatic divorce she reluctantly finds herself back in her childhood home in the shadow of the sprawling Idless wood. To start rebuilding, she takes the plunge and arranges to meet her estranged sister Cathy; she also bumps into Suzie, an old school friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret. 

But then Hazel meets Andrew, who claims to have rare fungi growing in his old farmhouse. Lured out into the wilderness by curiosity and no little professional ambition, Hazel is trapped by Andrew, shut in the basement with no help for miles around. 

As Cathy and Suzie desperately begin the search for her, Hazel starts to feel that something darker and even more terrifying than Andrew resides in that farmhouse. But is the power living in the dark with her or . . . much, much closer?

REVIEW

Dark Is When The Devil Comes is a twisty mix of genres from Daisy Pearce, author of The Missing and The Silence.

Hazel has returned to her parents’ house after breaking up with her husband. Trying to repair her strained relationship with her sister, Cathy, she arranges to meet up for a lunch date. When Hazel doesn’t arrive, Cathy just thinks Hazel has changed her mind  and stayed away.  However, she finds things are more sinister than she first thought after bumping into an old friend Suzie. 

Blending thrills and chills, Dark is When The Devil Comes is a tense tale of violence against women and how society often does not listen to those on the margins.

The story unfolds across two narrative strands. The first follows Hazel, who has been abducted  by an unknown assailant and held on a deserted farm, steeped in tragedy and murder. The second follows Cathy and Suzie’s storyline as they try to piece together the reason for Hazel’s disappearance and attempt to convince authorities that the disappearance is anything but voluntary.

The horror elements surface primarily through Hazel’s arc as we learn more about Hazel and the things that have haunted her, although it is Cathy’s journey and its more grounded horrors that prove the most compelling and unsettling. 

Whilst it is an interesting mix of genres, the story stands up best when we follow Cathy’s increasingly desperate attempts to get the authorities to take Hazel’s disappearance seriously, and this is where the true horror lies. The unexplained elements add atmosphere , but it is the frustration of following Cathy’s  struggle against the dismissive male dominated institutions that creates the novel’s sense of dread.

The narrative doesn’t hold any surprises and at times it is difficult to see what the horror elements actually add. Nevertheless it is Pearce’s writing that propels the story to an exciting conclusion.