Cornwall is a county of myths and magic, the wildness seeps into every stone.
Inspired by a real murder case Falling Creatures introduces us to Shilly, a farm maid who senses the strangeness around her, and the mysterious Mr Williams who seeks the truth of Charlotte Dymond’s death on the remote moor land around the farm she and Shilly worked on.
Shilly is convinced the wrong man is behind bars and Mr Williams is the only one who believes her, but he is not all he appears to be…
The second book in the series continues with that Gothic feel, as Shilly and ‘Mr Williams’ find themselves investigating a missing child and the rumour that witches, two sisters living in the woods, are in fact to blame. There is a reward to claim which would allow the establishing of a detectives’ agency. However it is Shilly’s feel for the uncanny that once again comes to their aid, and the secrets of the women of Trethevy hold the key.
Shilly is an innocent and perhaps that is why she can see things others, including her closest allies, cannot. The myths and legends of Cornwall, like St Nectan, seep through the books, and add to the atmosphere of supernatural mystery.
I love Gothic romance novels and these do not disappoint, there’s a sense of Daphne DuMaurier’s Cornish set Gothic romances, like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, that claustrophobia under open sky, to these. Not least because they are set in the same places, amidst the wildness of Bodmin and the close knit villages of the Cornish interior.
The third book in the series, The Mermaid’s Call is out in paperback next Spring and in hardback now.
*I was kindly gifted these books by the publisher but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 