Wakenhyrst

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The journals of painter and historian Edmund Stearne have been kept safely in Wake’s End since his admittance to an asylum for the criminally insane. He admitted he did it but that he never did anything wrong. 60 years later, his daughter releases his, and her, story to the world. Wakenhyrst is a gothic style horror set in the fens of East Anglia. While the characters are fictional, much of the story is based on real historical accounts; the delirious writings of a spiritualist, the disturbing paintings of asylum inmates, and the doom, a religious mural depicting the Day of Judgement.

Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver – We Women of Horror ‘Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver – We Women of Horror

Part of Edmund Stearne’s mental decline has to do with his obsession with a historical local woman, Alice Pyett, who lived during the late 1400s and allegedly experienced visions of demons and hell, before being saved by Jesus Christ and embarking on numerous pilgrimages across Europe. Throughout the book, Edmund works to translate a dictated book of her life story. I was reminded of the famous mystic, Margery Kempe, who authored (also through dictation) a book about her life (see The Book of Margery Kempe), which detailed her pilgrimages and spiritual conversations with God during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Lo and behold, when I read the authors notes I learned that the character of Alice Pyett was largely based on Kempe’s experiences. Sadly, Pyett is not initially regarded with the same favour as Kempe was in her time, often being referred to disparagingly as ‘this creature’ and ‘wretched’ in the text. Pyett’s contemporaries came very close to burning her as a Lollard, simply for professing the visions she had. Her treatment paralleled that of suspected witches in late medieval and early renaissance Britain, a malignant movement that would plague East Anglia in real life some mere 200 years after her time.Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl’s longing to fly free by the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air. Wakenhyrst is an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry. Wakenhyrst is a framed narrative set in Edwardian Suffolk, at the Sterne family’s ancestral marshland home of Wakes End. The story follows the life of Maud Sterne and her account of the mysterious events leading up to a gruesome murder committed by her father. We see Maud mature into adulthood while simultaneously watching her father, Edmund, descend into madness. I really enjoyed the elements of folk-horror Paver used in the novel. Images of swamp demons with wide mouths and frog-like eyes, impish creatures with swampy green horns, they paint a very different picture to the antiquated Christian red-skinned devils so often depicted in medieval dooms.

Wakenhyrst: : Michelle Paver: Head of Zeus

Wakenhyrst combines elements of all the things I adore, medieval history and religious imagery, the Anglo-Saxon language, the unromantic beauty of the East-Anglian marshes, gothic themes, visceral horror, and the astute exploration of gender and class issues in Edwardian Britain. Maud’s battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father’s past. This dark, gothic tale with hook you in with its atmospheric setting of a house on the edge of the Suffolk fens, and its themes of superstition, witchcraft and religion” Marianne has a dark history and a secret that she and her ex-boyfriend, Jesse, have kept for years. Now the pact they made is beginning to break, threatening her family and vulnerable daughter. Months after reading it, I remain obsessed with Michelle Paver’s Wakenhyrst… Spooky, twisted and unforgettable”Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past. Sally Hinchcliffe’s Hare House is a modern-day witch story, perfect for fans of Pine and The Loney. A highly successful children’s author, Michelle Paver actually began by writing novels for adults and has hollowed out a niche for herself in gothic stories for grownups, set at the beginning of the 20th century.