When we first met Jess, she is struggling to rebuild her life. Determined to begin again, she has escaped a violent past and is trying desperately to move on. She longs for nothing more than some semblance of normality for herself and her daughter, Izzy. A new role miles away from the claustrophobia of the inner city seems the ideal option.

In need of money, Jess is determined to find a better life for herself, away from her abusive former husband, and for her daughter, Izzy, to get her away from bullies at school. As such, Jess accepts a position as a care giver to “a shrunken figure within a wheelchair, Mrs. Florence Gardner.” The frail eighty-nine-year-old invalid suffers from dementia and lives in a huge, rambling manse, Nerthus House, “a dark warren that hasn’t been cleared, let alone tidied. In years.” Flo, in spite of “her rheumy eyes,” can be incredibly fast as Jess learns when she gets too close to the old woman, angering her, and Jess gets slapped and spat upon. Behind Flo’s “emaciated figure,” haggard appearance, and dully staring eyes, however, lies much, much more than appears—something both Jess and Izzy begin to discover much to their dismay. Beyond this mown pelt of grass, a weathered vicarage stands sentinel. An outcrop of dour stone with windows as impenetrable as the pond’s untroubled surface.' An eerie folk horror novel from the author of Cunning Folk , The Reddening , The Ritual , No One Gets Out Alive and the four-time winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel. I can't believe it took me this long to write this review, because I read this ages ago when it first came out. To be honest, I thought I had already reviewed it. Anyway, I've read all of Adam's work, and 99% of it I have really loved. He really knows how to craft a tale that keeps you hooked till the end, and this one is no different. Adam Nevill is exceptionally good at building layers, (I touched on in an earlier review of his book, Under a Watchful Eye) but the strength of this novel is that each inevitably ends up going on a much longer and darker journey than initially presented. I continually found myself impressed with his creativity as the story gave up its secrets, and while it ultimately went more-or-less where I expected at the outset, that place looked very different once I got there.Alexander, Niall. "Novel Docu-Horror: Last Days by Adam Nevill". Tor.com . Retrieved 21 August 2013. After an absurdly long fallow period, literary horror is showing signs of a return to commercial success and cultural visibility. The ending was a brutal finale, a culmination of everything we’d seen teased and subtly highlighted. Isn’t it great to have a new Nevill on an almost annual basis? Well, it is for this reader. I’m admittedly late to the Nevill game, having only really dove into his work over the last four years or so, but in that time not only has he become one of my favorite authors, but reading his releases is always an education in storytelling, at least for me.

The Vessel is a short novel that is well-written on a sentence-by-sentence basis, it is socially-grounded, intermittently creepy, and has some really powerful imagery. The individual elements are all strong but the connections between those elements are weak, under-developed, or outright bungled. Having finished The Vessel, I would love to know more about Jess’ psychological journey and the workings of the coven but neither of those things is in this book and so I am left both disappointed and frustrated. Struggling with money, raising a child alone, and fleeing a volatile ex, Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient. Flo Gardner–a disturbed shut-in and invalid. But if Jess can hold this job down, she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin a new life.

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As an aside, how long does it take for a thing to become a tradition? Ritual Limited have been spoiling us with new books from Adam Nevill pretty much consistently every October for years now. It will not surprise you to discover that it has become one of the highlights on my literary calendar. The Vessel felt alive, like the novella came with the thudding heartbeat sound effect horror fans hold so near and dear. The Nerthus House, where Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient, Flo, beats to the drum of dread. The walls hum with a malevolent secret, and the air whispers taunts of grotesquerie. But Jess must fight her suspicions and fear of the dark, cluttered home so she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin anew. An eerie folk horror novel from the author of Cunning Folk, The Reddening, The Ritual, No One Gets Out Alive and the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel. That’s when the strangeness starts for Jess. Her dreams are filled with visions of Nerthus House and the mysterious grove that lies beyond it, where scythe-carrying women once walked in a procession before a woven hawthorn cage. Izzy and Flo become secretive, whispering when she is out of sight, and Jess finds fleshy trophies and tiny altars hidden around the house. It’s as if an ancient ritual was triggered when Jess crossed the threshold of the vicarage. A rite leading her and Izzy to a terrifying critical mass, where all will be lost or saved.

It’s nearly Halloween so it seems appropriate that this week’s review visits the darker side of human nature, and the horror that comes with it. Fortune, Aidan. "The Ritual by Adam Nevill (book review)". SF Crowsnest . Retrieved 5 October 2014. Let me start off with the writing. It is superb. He both paints the picture and easily draws you in as well. It is why that line by The Guardian so applies in that you become a part of the story and you do live it. I had the oddest feeling reading this book because of that. It was just so different and you do not come across it all that often so when you do it is special. I also think that many publishers don't necessarily like that type of writing. Jonathan Maberry Ghost Road Blues trilogy was also magnificently written but he no longer writes like that. I believe he was told to dummy it down. So many readers simply read over the picture being painted so why bother I guess. Nevill though draws a fine line with how he writes not over complicating things and setting the table just right so to speak. It was so refreshing to see someone who can write, right? The story climaxes with a confrontation at Flo's house between Tony and Jess. So odd and yet so true that so many idiots believe that yeah I failed on this planet but I will kill us all so we can all start over in Heaven. Like do you think you will be rewarded in heaven when you have done such a thing. It is during this escalation that we see Flo and her coven really excel and it is just so damn good! A very different and surprising ending that I really enjoyed. There are only a select few authors I would abandon what I’m currently reading, close the curtains, and drop out of society for a few days and pounce upon their latest work. Adam Nevill features prominently on that shortlist and is joined by other all-time favourites, including Ian Rankin, Scott Sigler, Michael Connelly, CS Sansom, Henning Mankell, John Connolly and Robert McCammon, all of which have given me countless hours of escapism with a new published work guaranteed to be a highlight of my literary year. Nobody can weave a story better than these big names and although they are never predictable, you sort of know what they are going to bring to the table. However, with The Vessel, Adam Nevill turns this idea on its head and, surprisingly, breaks from tradition with his shortest novel by some distance.House Of Small Shadows author Adam Nevill: Erotica paved the way to horror". Metro . Retrieved 31 August 2014.