Tag Archives: Michelle Paver

#BookReview ‘Rainforest’ by Michelle Paver #suspense #mystery

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Set in Mexico in the 1970s, Rainforest by Michelle Paver is an intoxicating mixture of unrequited love, tropical rainforest, Mayan culture, drugs and obsession. When Simon Corbett joins a scientific expedition in the South American jungle, he takes with him a strange talisman to remind him of a former love. Michelle PaverOstensibly, Simon joins the team as entomologist, a specialist in insects, keen to find new species of mantids. He wants to get his life back, get his career on track again, face up to his demons. Really, he is running way from guilt. He feels responsible for the death of Penelope, a woman with whom he formed an attachment, though she died in a car accident when Simon was miles away. Gradually his backstory is revealed as Simon writes a journal, explores the rainforest and gets to know his fellow explorers. They’re a strange bunch with odd habits and secrets, just like Simon himself. He sees the rainforest, and his mantids, as his saviours. ‘If only I too could believe that I can contact the dead. That I could see her, touch her one last time. If only, if only, if only. That’s why I can’t sleep. That’s why I need the jungle. If anything can save me, it’s my mantids. We’re in this together, my beauties. It’s you and me against the world.’ It takes a while for the full story of Simon’s relationship with Penelope to become clear and we only ever have his side of the story.
Paver’s description is beautiful, but always one step away, hidden by a leaf, a shadow, there is an unknown threat. Perhaps a snake, a nest of fire ants, a bullet ant, howler monkeys, a caiman, a Mayan shaman, the ghost of the shaman’s dead brother. The worst threats are in Simon’s mind, his dreams at night, his imagination. Paver has written an eerie tale encompassing unrequited love, stalking, paranoia, loneliness, social isolation and ineptness. Simon’s nightmares are so real the line begins to blur so that I question is it really happening or is he imagining everything. The rainforest is an unreal world, unsettling, easy to lose oneself in, even if you’re healthy. And Simon is definitely vulnerable. But decidedly stubborn.
Underlying it all is the how the way of life of indigenous peoples is being threatened by westerners invading their rainforest environment. At best it is a thoughtless, arrogant disregard for the native people, at worst an exploitative, abusive motivation that threatens not just the people who live in the deep jungle but the natural world, its fauna and flora, no matter how beautiful or strange. Trees are felled, habitat destroyed, artefacts stolen.
I loved the rainforest setting, the description is faultlessly fabulous. I found it more difficult to connect with Simon. At times I felt a little in despair of his self-destructive streak, a compulsion to indulge in his painful memories, always choosing the path of pain rather than the one towards recovery. Like poking a wound with a needle. Where is the threat? In the rainforest surrounding the camp on all sides, or inside Simon?
How far will a man go to avoid bad memories? The truth is wherever you go, the memories go with you and so does the danger. When you’re lost in the rainforest, something beautiful can kill you, or something invisible, or something inside your head. Michelle Paver writes brilliant ghost stories set in extreme physical conditions. The Arctic in Dark Matter and the Himalayas in Thin Air, both are 4* books for me; and the 5* Wakenhyrst set beside the bleak East Anglian fens. All of them play with the concept of what is real and what is imagined. If it’s not real, does that means it’s not dangerous?
Very good. Though I didn’t particularly like Simon, I was still thinking about him days after finishing the book.

And read my reviews of these other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THE OUTSIDERS #1GODS&WARRIORS
THIN AIR
VIPER’S DAUGHTER #7WOLFBROTHER
WAKENHYRST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Snakes’ by Sadie Jones
‘The Hoarder’ by Jess Kidd
‘The Ice’ by Laline Paull

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview RAINFOREST by Michelle Paver https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8uH via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Harriet Constable

#BookReview ‘Viper’s Daughter’ by Michelle Paver #WolfBrother #YA #fantasy

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After an eleven-year gap while writing other fiction, in 2020 Michelle Paver returned to her ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ YA series with the seventh installment, Viper’s Daughter. Torak and Renn’s peaceful life, living alongside Wolf, Darkfur and their cubs, is broken when Renn disappears without a word. Michelle PaverOnce again, the trio are catapulted into danger as they travel to the Far North, an unfamiliar land without trees, negotiating ice flows, ice bears, mammut and firey demons. Wearing claws strapped to their feet and shields over their eyes, their always sharp senses are minimised in this unfamiliar territory, oh so cold and without their normal forest prey for food. But the foe they seek is worse than they could ever have imagined.
The story is told in turn from Torak, Renn and Wolf’s viewpoints. As always, Wolf’s voice is a standout. The world created by Paver is so believable, based on a phenomenal amount of research and expeditions in Scandinavia, Siberia, Greenland and Alaska. She knows what she is talking about. And Wolf’s observations seem to clarify the differences between the trio’s home in the Forest and this eerie place of the ‘Great Hard Cold’ where the ground rumbles ‘like the earth talking to itself.’ Paver’s love for the natural world is behind every description and her imagination continues to thrill as this mature series continues to surprise and delight.
This is a great read, full of magic, love, loyalty, challenge and adventure. Such a pleasure to be back with such well-loved characters, though if you are new to the series Viper’s Daughter can also be read as a stand-alone novel.
Seventh in the fantastic ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ series, which started with Wolf Brother, with another two books, Skin Taker and Wolfbane, taking the series to nine. Don’t miss the audio series, narrated by Ian McKellan. Great for children and adults alike.

And read my reviews of two other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THE OUTSIDERS #1GODS&WARRIORS
THIN AIR
WAKENHYRST

If you like this, try:-
‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar
‘Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane’ by Suzanne Collins #2UnderlandChronicles
‘Insurgent’ by Veronica Roth #2Divergent

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview VIPER’S DAUGHTER by Michelle Paver https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7g8 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Amanda Huggins

#BookReview ‘Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver #gothic #mystery

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Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver is a creepy atmospheric novel that has been described as a ghost story, but the only ghosts in it are in the minds of the people. Which of course makes them enormously powerful and frightening. I found myself eager to return to this book, resenting time away from it. Paver is a skilled storyteller and I am coming to anticipate her new books with relish. If you haven’t read her adult novels, you are in for a treat. Michelle PaverThe story starts with a newspaper article written in 1966 entitled ’The Mystery of Edmund Stearne’. The journalist, who has spoken to Stearne’s daughter Maud about the conviction of her father for murder in 1913, casts doubt on Maud’s version of events. Could Maud be the guilty one? The story is set at Wake’s End, a country house at Wakenhyrst, a village beside the Guthlaf’s Fen in Suffolk. Paver creates this setting with all the intensity and atmosphere with which she created the Arctic in Dark Matter and the Himalayas in Thin Air. The fens haunt every aspect of life at the house and on bad days, when the weather closes in and the mind is in turmoil, the fens invade the rooms too. The rotting stench. A scratching at the windows. Damp and infection. Edmund hates the fens and forbids Maud and her older brother Richard from crossing the bridge; Nurse too is full of scary stories of ferishes and hobby-lanterns that entice people to their death. Others are more pragmatic, depending on the fens for their living and for food.
When Maud’s mother dies in childbirth everything changes at Wake’s End. Richard is sent away to school and thirteen-year old Maud becomes housekeeper and then secretary for her father who is a medieval historian. Edmund’s odd behavior begins when he uncovers an ancient painting in the graveyard of local church St Guthlaf’s. He imagines that the eyes of the Doom, the painted devil, are staring at him with purpose, that the devil knows his secret. The Doom is restored and hung again in the church, but in a locked room. When Edmund kills Maud’s favourite magpie, Chatterpie, her dislike of her father becomes a mission to fathom the truth of his odd behavior.
This is a thoughtful mystery rather than a thriller, the danger and threats unfold at a steady pace and the questions continue until the end. What was Edmund’s crime and how far will he go to hide the truth? Why does he hate the fens so much? How exactly do the strands of waterweed appear on his pillow? Not so much a ghost story as a mystery of rational understanding clouded by folktale, medieval legend and tales of ancient witchcraft and superstition.
The story unfolds through Maud’s eyes and the excerpts she reads of her father’s diaries, plus Edmund’s translations of a medieval mystic Alice Pyett and The Life of St Guthlaf. Although Edmund is an unsympathetic character, I did pause at one point to wonder the reliability of Maud’s account. Maud is an impressive character; denied education because she is a girl she reads secretly and resents her father’s nightly use of her mother, multiple pregnancies which eventually lead to Maman’s death. Paver is good at drawing a picture of the community; fen-dweller Jubal Rede, assistant gardener Clem Walker, servant Ivy, rector Mr Broadstairs, Dr Grayson and village wisewoman Boddy Thrussel. Modern medicine beside folk remedies. Church of England beside centuries-old folklore.
So creepy is the story, so isolated is this house beside the fen, that the setting feels older than Edwardian England. It could easily be set in the 19thcentury, excepting the references to trains and telegraphs. The isolation of the community is key to the crimes committed; truth may disappear, be disguised and denied, but someone always sees, someone always knows. The fen holds the answers.
Excellent.

And read my reviews of other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THE OUTSIDERS #1GODS&WARRIORS
THIN AIR
VIPER’S DAUGHTER #7WOLFBROTHER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Witchfinder’s Sister’ by Beth Underdown
‘Deerleap’ by Sarah Walsh
‘The Confessions of Frannie Langton’ by Sara Collins

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview WAKENHYRST by Michelle Paver https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Yb via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Outsiders’ by Michelle Paver #YA #fantasy

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I came to this Michelle Paver series late, years after reading the award-winning ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ series which starts with the wonderful Wolf Brother. Doubtful that any character could be as admirable as Torak, it was a joy to read about The Outsiders, first in the ‘Gods and Warriors’ series. Hylas, like Torak, is an outsider. Michelle PaverThe Outsiders starts at a run from the first page and doesn’t slow up. Hylas has been attacked, his dog is dead, his sister missing and a fellow goatherd killed. And the killers are after him. Adrift at sea, disorientated, Hylas fears he must die. And then there follows a glorious section about dolphins. I won’t give away any more of the plot. The narrative is a shape familiar from Wolf Brother – wild boy in trouble, on the run, not sure who is friend or foe, sets off on a quest where he makes new alliances – but that doesn’t mean this is not an entertaining read with new characters, a new setting, and different myths and gods.
Michelle Paver’s books for children and young adults are set in mystical places but are based on solid research about the way our ancestors lived and survived in wild lands, the animals they hunted, the gods they worshipped and the monsters they feared. The Outsiders is set in the Mediterranean in the Bronze Age.
All the outdoors things inaccessible to today’s children – unsupervised by adults, expected to be self-sufficient at the age of twelve, adventuring to unfamiliar places, making a den, lighting a fire, navigating, foraging, analysing geography, weather and threats. Her child characters have respect for their world, they are brave, adventurous and learn quickly from their mistakes. If they don’t, they will die: these are not gentle stories but they are a preparation for the real world where children must learn for themselves how to survive.

And read my reviews of these other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THIN AIR
VIPER’S DAUGHTER #7WOLFBROTHER
WAKENHYRST

If you like this, try:-
‘Gregor the Overlander’ by Suzanne Collins #1UNDERLANDCHRONICLES
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden #1WINTERNIGHT
‘Divergent’ by Veronica Roth #1DIVERGENT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE OUTSIDERS by Michelle Paver http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2c5 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Thin Air’ by Michelle Paver #ghosts #mystery

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1935, the Himalayas. A team arrives in Darjeeling, in preparation for climbing Kanchenjunga. A retired climber, who attempted the same climb, warns the team’s doctor to cancel the climb, or take another route. And so begins Thin Air by Michelle Paver, a tale balancing the power of nature, the vulnerability of man’s minds, and the toxic mix of superstition and arrogance. Michelle PaverIs the retired climber right, is there something bad out there? If so, what? Can the past come back to haunt you? No-one has stood on the very peak of Kanchenjunga, the locals believe it is bad luck to do so. At her website, Michelle Paver writes about her expeditions – she travels extensively to research her novels – and it shows that she has been there. Throw into the mix some bitter sibling rivalry, class snobbishness and Sherpa superstitions, and you have an atmospheric thriller which makes you really feel you are there, with them, stranded in a tent in a Himalayan blizzard.
Billed by some as a ghost story, this is more an account of psychological terror: as the mountaineers climb higher, the tension tightens. Is their bitching, sniping and forgetfulness a symptom of altitude sickness? Is the doctor hallucinating, or are his sightings a sign of a something more sinister?
I loved Paver’s previous ‘ghost/terror’ novel, Dark Matter. This is similar, the tension tightens slowly, with the turn of every page, until you cannot put the book down.

And read my reviews of other novels by Michelle Paver:-
THE OUTSIDERS #1GODS&WARRIORS
VIPER’S DAUGHTER #7WOLFBROTHER
WAKENHYRST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Wicked Cometh’ by Laura Carlin
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein
‘The House on Cold Hill’ by Peter James

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THIN AIR by Michelle Paver http://wp.me/p5gEM4-21Y via @SandraDanby