Central to the story are Stephen, the narrator and team physician who is writing a journal, and his older brother Kits who is a very confident mountaineer. I found it utterly spellbinding and somewhat terrifying, whilst at the same time being able to feel the cold and sense the dread on top of a mountain. there he will find meaning to his life, camaraderie and fellowship and an intense crush on one of his fellow adventurers, and an atrocious and deadly ghost. That got rejected, too – but 23 years later, while looking through her old manuscripts she realised there was something there. I loved the atmosphere Paver created in this novel, you can really lose yourself in scenario’s and feel the plummeting sense of fear and dread that plagues Stephen.

Dark Matter (Paver novel) - Wikipedia

When the summer is over and darkness sets in, you can truly visualise the derelict trappers hut, the ice, the snow and harsh landscape. Stearne spends the rest of his life in an asylum, creating three Hieronymus Bosch-esque paintings full of “tiny malevolent faces”.Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. The story is told from the viewpoint of Stephen, who is a doctor and the younger brother of the group leader Kits. Thousands of years ago an orphan boy and his wolf cub challenge a demon bear that threatens to destroy their world for ever.

Dark Matter: the gripping ghost story from the author of

Being on a mountain forces us to confront the vast, unsentient reality that's always present behind our own busy little human world, which we tuck around ourselves like a counterpane, to keep out the cold. The characters were also rather weak, and I didn't necessarily feel the pull that I'm guessing the author wanted me to feel. It is scary, but scary in the way the way of things you actively seek out to scare you when you're young; indeed, probably a little more so than Dark Matter, this feels like a book that could be enjoyed by readers of all ages (which makes sense given Paver's extensive back catalogue of children's fiction).

Five quickly became three before their destination was even reached and with the endless night soon approaching will this number be enough to both complete their expedition as well as to ensure each o Wakenhyrst is equally brilliant, spanning fen devils, mystics and the lot of women in Edwardian England as Paver carefully circles the question of Stearne’s madness: are the devils he sees real or imagined? The strength of the novel lies not only in the depiction of a detailed future of hardship and privation, but in the expert characterisation of Shah: a lone figure whose origins leave him open to prejudice within the police department, and whose problematic relationship with an intersexual courtesan reveals his own deep-seated prejudices. The mountain at the centre of this story is Kangchenjunga; the tale is narrated by the team's doctor, Stephen, writing in his journal. Both his background as well as his personality make Jack an interesting, rounded character whose voice is perfect for the era and drive much of story’s momentum as his initial reserve and preconceived ideas begin to crumble in the remoteness of the Arctic Circle.

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The loose ends were tied up nicely but I felt like they were rushed and compacted into just a few pages. This is a blood-curdling ghost story” agrees Victoria Moore in the Daily Mail, “evocative not just of icy northern wastes but of a mind as, trapped, it turns in on itself. I thought, ‘I’m quite good at exams, why don’t I do law for a couple of years and maybe I’ll be published by then?It is 1935 and our narrator, Dr Stephen Pearce, has left London, and the woman he was supposed to be marrying, to join his brother, Kit, on a mountaineering expedition.

Dark Matter, Clowns at Midnight, Damage Time and Version 43 Dark Matter, Clowns at Midnight, Damage Time and Version 43

It came to me highly recommended and I usually love tales of isolation and distress, but for whatever reason this one didn't move me much. The ultimate test of a good ghost story is, surely, whether you feel panicked reading it in bed at midnight. Secondly, the character Gus Balfour's namesake comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's mother's maiden name; Balfour.

At the start, there are just small occurrences of unease, a shadow at the edge of Stephen’s vision or the dark shape of a man further up the mountain. This book combined so many genres that I love: horror, historical fiction, paranormal, and adventure. In London in 1937, 28-year-old Jack Miller is stuck in a dead-end job and jumps at the chance to be a wireless operator on a year-long Arctic expedition to Gruhuken on the northeast coast of Svalbard, though he has reservations about the class divide separating him from the other, Oxford University educated, members of the team. Despite its short length, the novel's greatest strength is its sense of place and the atmosphere it evokes: while reading Jack's first person account you'll feel as if you were there beside him in the deep north, chilled to the bone.