Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Synopsis: Out of nowhere, for no reason, I was afraid. My skin prickled. My heart thudded in my throat. My body knew before I did that I was not alone...

London, 1937. Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life, so when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway and at last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year.

But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. Soon Jack will see the last of the sun, the sea will freeze and escape will be impossible.

And Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark...

My thoughts: Dark Matter is written in the form of main character, Jack's journal and follows his journey from the first moment he meets his expedition companions for a drink in London right through until just before he is rescued from the Arctic. After that point, Jack refuses to write in his journal but we get a narrative from inside his head instead, which brings more urgency in one of the more action filled parts of the story.

Over the course of his Arctic expedition Jack changes as a character. At the start of the novel, in London, he is a solitary person who is quite looking forward to the peace and stillness of the Arctic. But by the time he is truly alone in the Arctic wilderness he realises what it's like to have friends and he realises that he does need people after all.

I wasn't really sure about the 'ghost' that Jack was seeing. I couldn't work out if it was real or if it was his imagination playing tricks on him because he was alone in an endless night. But whatever it was, the author built up the tension really well and as I was reading I had a strong feeling that something bad was about to happen. It was the sort of feeling where I didn't want to turn the page because I was scared, but had to carry on because I was desperate to know what was coming next.

This is one of those books where although it seems like a straight-forward ghost story, there's definitely a psychological element too as Jack seems to slide into madness. A great book for anyone who enjoys a good scare now and then!

Received for review on behalf of WHSmith's

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline - its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

My thoughts: I really loved this book! Told from Dr. Faraday's point of view, the story tells of the Ayres family and their home, Hundreds Hall. Dr. Faraday loves the house and gradually he becomes more and more involved with Hundreds Hall and the Ayres family.
It's hard to tell what exactly is going on in the house, at first it seems like a ghost but as the story went on and madness crept into the house, I wasn't sure whether it was caused by the supernatural or the psychological elements. 
 
The story is a really good historical novel and I loved the descriptions of the house, even if it was a little creepy! Actually, I think this is one of those books that I'd like to live in, because I loved the house as much as Dr. Faraday did.
 
An extra thing that I liked about this book is that it's set in Warwickshire which is quite close to where I live. In fact at one stage in the story the two women visit Worcester, which is the city where I grew up. It was one of those moments when I was like "Ooh I know that place" lol, it just adds to my enjoyment of a story if I recognise the setting.

DEAD(ish) by Naomi Kramer

Synopsis: Linda’s had a bad day. First her boyfriend killed her. Then she woke up, still on this boring plane of existence, and with an odd obsession about her missing body. Mike won’t tell her what he did with her body, and she can’t find the stupid thing herself. There’s only one thing she can do - torment the b*****d until he coughs up the information.

My thoughts: This was a quick story to read. The point-of-view jumps between the different characters, which can be confusing in places.

The story is quite shallow, we don't really learn much about the characters, only about their relationships with each other.

This book made me laugh, but to be honest, it's a bit silly (in a good way).

Lily by Adele Geras

Synopsis from back cover: "My name is Marie Cotter and I want you to believe me. Every word of this story is true..." Seventeen-year-old Marie has had a lot to cope with in her young life. Now she is recovering, and gets a job working for the widower, Dr Slade, looking after his four-year-old daughter, Amy. At first, her new job seems perfect. Marie loves Amy, and Amy seems to like Marie, too. But, not long after arriving at Bowdon House, things start to change. It seems that not everyone is happy with the new situation... There appears to be someone else in the house - someone who is determined to come between Amy and Marie...

My thoughts: This story is told from Marie's point of view. Marie is a teenage girl who is haunted by two ghosts in this story. The first ghost is Zoe, the baby that Marie miscarried. Understandably, her psychiatrist doesn't believe her when she says she's seen Zoe, and the doctor basically tells her that it's all in her head.

Later on, Marie is offered a job as a nanny to look after her psychiatrist's daughter, Amy. This is where things start to get quite spooky. Amy is convinced that her dead mum speaks to her through an old mobile phone.

I enjoyed this story, I just wish it had been longer. It was a very quick read, and although you do get sucked in to the story, the ending seemed to lack something.

Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair

Synopis from back cover: May Sinclair was an innovator of modern fiction, a late Victorian who was also a precursor to Virginia Woolf. In her Uncanny Stories (1923), Sinclair combines the traditional ghost story with the discoveries of Freud and Einstein. The stories shock, enthral, delight and unsettle.

Two lovers are doomed to repeat their empty affair for the rest of eternity... A female telepath is forced to face the consequences of her actions... The victim of a violent murder has the last laugh on his assailant... An amateur philosopher discovers that there is more to Heaven than meets the eye.

Specially included in this volume is 'The Intercessor' (1911), Sinclair's powerful story of childhood and abandoned love, a tale whose intensity compares with that of the Brontës.

My Thoughts: This book contains eight short stories and an introduction by Paul March-Russell.
The introduction is mostly an analysis of the stories in the book, and would have probably made more sense to me if I'd read it after I'd finished the book.

“Where their Fire is not Quenched” is about two lovers who are having an empty affair and end up having to spend eternity repeating it. I found this story a bit confusing as it jumps through the years quite quickly. It was a bit dull really, just like their affair.

“The Token” is about a man who can’t express his love for his wife, so when she dies she comes back to find out if he really loved her. I enjoyed this story.

“The Flaw in the Crystal” is about a telepathic healer who finds it hard when the person she is healing finds out that she is the one keeping him healthy. This story was ok, but it was dragged out too long in my opinion.

“The Nature of the Evidence” is about a man who takes a new wife after his first wife dies. When he tries to go to his new wife’s bedroom he is visited by the ghost of his old wife.

“If the Dead Knew” is about a man who wishes his mother would hurry up and die, and she does.

“The Victim” is a murder story. A chauffeur murders his master and is then haunted by what he has done. I really liked this story.

“The Finding of the Absolute” is the story of an amateur philosopher who goes to heaven. Some of the ideas of heaven are interesting, but there were too many scientific explanations in this story and I found it confusing.

“The Intercessor” is a haunting story of a house haunted by a little girl who is looking for the love of her mother. This was my favourite story in the whole book, it was quite spooky.

Overall I enjoyed about half of the stories in the book, the other half I found a bit dull.