From the publisher: “Moving from the heart of the city of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for born townies, Ollie Harcourt, his wife, Caro, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House – a huge, dilapidated, Georgian mansion – they are filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, Ollie has dreamed of living in the country since he was a child, and with its acres of land, he sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, a base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment. Caro is less certain, and Jade is grumpy about being removed from all her friends.
But within days of moving in, it soon becomes apparent that the Harcourt family aren’t the only residents in the house. At first it is only a friend of Jade, talking to her on Facetime, who sees a spectral woman standing behind her. Then there are more sightings of her, as well as increasingly disturbing occurrences in the house. Two weeks after moving in, Caro, out in the garden, is startled to see faces staring out of an upstairs window of the house.
The window of a room which holds the secret to the house’s dark history . . . a room which does not appear to exist . . .”
Peter James is a writer best known these days for his Crime writing here in the UK, though many of his earlier books (Twilight (1991), Prophecy (1992), Host (1993) and Alchemist (1996)) had a distinct touch of the Stephen King about them, albeit a British setting. Now with nearly 40 books to his name, here he returns to his earlier Horror novel background and uses his skills to write a good old-fashioned creepy house story in a contemporary setting.
Cold Hill is a house 10 miles from Brighton that has a touch of Hill House about it. Set in a contemporary setting, it reads easily and quickly. The first chapter is unsubtle and rather unnecessary, but when it gets to the meat of the novel, telling of the Harcourt family, it reads as modern as a contemporary book should be. (Reading the publisher’s synopsis above should show that.)
Really though, The House on Cold Hill is all about that clash between the old and the new, of the dichotomy between the real and the unreal, of course, and whilst the book is filled with comments of iPads, Facetime and Bruno Mars, the real story is one that extends through history from the past to the present. Peter eases the reader into it by setting up the practicality of the modern world well and the family seems to be a modern one, albeit not a common one, in that they have recently come into money and are now investing it into a rapidly costly money pit.
Pretty quickly things become odd – images of an old lady appear during Skype-time, strange photos and stark messages of doom appear and then disappear on mobile phones, characters are met who we find haven’t been around for a long time. Despite the attractiveness of the setting and the quaintly aspirational intentions for the dilapidated mansion, it’s clear that things are not right.
The characters themselves are pretty recognisable as a middle-class entrepreneurial family straight out of the trendy lifestyle magazines. Whilst this may not be identifiable to everyone reading, they are easily accepted to the point where the reader can just get on with reading the story.
For the reader though, it is great fun to see how minor details ramp up to something in the end that’s a bit more serious. Things do seem to happen rather fast at times, which can niggle with your sense of disbelief, but generally the reader accepts this as part of the deal. Whilst we know things are clearly not going to go well, despite the character’s protestations to the contrary, the entertainment is in seeing how we get there.
The ending is appropriately enigmatic. Don’t expect an answer to everything, although the suggestion given for the happenings is there. There’s almost a science-fictional element to this, although at the same time there’s enough unexplained to make the story a ghost story in its usual sense.
Whilst The House on Cold Hill didn’t exactly give me a chill reading it, I enjoyed it a lot. It’s probably best regarded as a book to recommend to non-genre readers, perhaps for Halloween – provided they can get past that first chapter. The modern take of classical tropes is entertaining and a quick read but not one with a great deal of depth behind it. Nevertheless, the best-seller status of the book – the cover proclaims “17 Million Copies Sold” in the UK – suggests that its popularity is, at least in part, due to the easy read nature of the prose.
Perhaps unsurprisingly with such sales, a sequel – The Secret of Cold Hill – has just been published. There is also a stage production of the book as well.
The House on Cold Hill by Peter James
Published by Pan Books, June 2016
ISBN: 978-1447255949
352 pages
Review by Mark Yon
