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The Secret of Cold Hill

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It's not scary in the slightest. It's about as terrifying as Thomas the Tank Engine, and to be frank, he creates main protagonists so appallingly middle-class that you sort of wish the ghosts would hurry up and kill them. There is one thing that never appears in the estate agent brochures: nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left . . . This seems like a negative review, but it's not entirely. I did enjoy this book. Peter James is a great writer and this book is just as well written. It's easy to read and it is enjoyable. The ghosty bits are suitably chilling. I think I was just a little disappointed, and I expected it to be different. I don't really understand the author's motivation to write this. For the first two families to move into their new houses at Cold Hill Park, this is a fresh start. Jason and Emily Danes are thrilled to finally settle in to their family home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s a long-awaited retirement dream. Cold Hill Park appears to be the perfect place to live. The terrifying sequel to the bestselling The House on Cold Hill, from a master of spine-chilling horror.

You cannot bury evil’ states the spine tingling front cover tagline of bestselling British author Peter James’ brand new novel, The Secret of Cold Hill. Following on from his 2015 release, The House on Cold Hill, which was recently made into a theatre production, the second book in the Cold Hill series is creepy, intense, unpredictable and consuming. The characters that populate The Secret of Cold Hill are compelling. Readers will most probably find the lead couple, Jason and Emily, very agreeable and relatable. I genuinely wanted this couple to conquer the feat of Cold Hill Park! On the other hand, I had plenty of contempt for the other couple of the tale, the Penze-Weedell’s. However, I think we have all had cringe worthy neighbours in our lives at some point in time that we wish to avoid at all costs! James utilises a good dose of humour to this couple, which offsets the darkness of this spine tingling tale. It was very cliche, and in many ways was repetitive of the first instalment, but I just wanted a classic "haunted house" book for the lead up to Halloween, and this fit the bill. It did what I wanted it to do; it entertained me.The House On Cold Hill is very much inspired by, and modelled on, an isolated historic house in Sussex that my former wife and I bought in 1989 – and which turned out to be seriously haunted. I asked her if there was anything I could do about this, and she told me that the apparition was of a deeply disturbed former resident of the house, and that it needed a clergyman to deal with it. This is the second book in the series, but I didn't feel I was missing anything by not having read the first book before I read this one. The Secret of Cold Hill is perfect for readers who like spooky rather than creepy in their horror stories. The Secret of Cold Hill is actually the follow-up to James’ earlier book, The House On Cold Hill, which I was sent an ARC copy of by the publishers. James is a bestselling author who’s pretty approachable on social media. He’s shared a photo of my cat with some of his books, he’s replied to a few of my comments on his YouTube channel, and he even let me send him a copy of my first cosy mystery novel, Driven.

But it’s not long before both couples begin to realize they are not alone in their new homes. For Cold Hill House may be gone, but none of the previous inhabitants have ever really left . . . Even so, I was a little surprised when he cheerfully entered the atrium, stood still for a couple of minutes, and then loudly and very firmly enunciated, into thin air, ‘You may go now!’ Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history and a new era has begun.

There is a strong strand of unpredictability that follows The Secret of Cold Hill from the start. The short and highly engrossing chapters are populated by events that follow a tight time frame. The novel opens on 20th October and then wraps up on the 27th December. There is an additional closing chapter based in April 2020, which served to answer a few questions I had about the book, but it also posed a few more! I do hope Peter James is able to extend upon these questions in a possible future issue, or issues of this engrossing series. At the time he was officially the Vicar of Brighton – but with another hat, he was also officially, the Chief Exorcist of the Church Of England. That wasn’t his actual title, which was the less flaky-sounding ‘Minister Of Deliverance.’ A former monk, the son of two medics, a university double first in psychology, he was as far from Max Von Sydow’s Father Merrin in The Exorcist as you could get. He is a delightful human being, with whom I had become good friends, and still am to this day. He is a modern thinker, a clergyman who has a problem with the biblical concepts of God, yet still retains an infectious faith. His views, for instance, on the Ouija board are, that far from putting its participants in touch with the spiritual world, it actually opens up a Pandora’s Box of their own inner demons. Being new to audiobooks I’ve realised it’s not only the story, the characters and pace that matters as it does reading a book but also whomever reads the book can make or break it. In this case it didn’t hit the spot on many levels. Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house's history, and a new era has begun. I got this as one of a pair for Christmas with The House on Cold Hill. I thought that was pretty dreadful, but I thought I'd give this one a go to see if it improved.

From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes T he Secret of Cold Hill. T he spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill. Now a smash-hit stage play. By my own admission I am not a prolific reader of this genre and feel far more at home with the psychological thriller but such is Peter James writing that I always entertained by his novels. And suddenly, strange things start happening in Jason and Emily’s house, and it feels like they’re not alone. Then they discover that no one has ever lived beyond the age of 40 in Cold Hill Jason is an up and coming artist looking forward to the studio and quiet surroundings of the new home. Emily, with her friend Louise, is a caterer, and will manage the business out of the adapted garage. Everything looks wonderful as they work at settling in shortly before Christmas. They meet their across-the-street neighbors, Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell soon and learn they have little in common. The Penze-Weedells, especially Claudette, do seem close to caricature.

I did like the fact that it seemed very similar at first, because I was expecting it to go off in a different direction, like these guys would do something to break the chain. Again, it was a bit different because there are different ghosts featured than were in the first book, but that really didn't change things much. Nothing amazing happens that didn't happen already in the first book. As do some of the characters, unfortunately. The neighbours are a ridiculously cliched caricature of a middle class elderly couple (despite being described as in their early 50s) and the main protagonists are frankly so unlikeable, I was secretly cheering for the ghosts to drop some masonry on their heads and have done with it. This is a sequel to Peter James' book "The House on Cold Hill". I enjoyed that book so I figured I would like this one too. From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes T he Secret of Cold Hill. T he spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill . Now a smash-hit stage play. Artist Jason Danes and his caterer wife Emily think their new house is perfect, even if their only neighbours, Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, are more than a tad strange. But they’re certain more people will be moving onto the Cold Hill Park estate soon, including the family bombing around in a huge American car, cigar smoke trailing in their wake. It’s a shame the locals in the village aren’t keen on newcomers, though.

The Secret of Cold Hill isn’t drastically different from the first book in many ways, and it’s not James at his best by any means. I could never quite make my mind up about the ending of The House on Cold Hill. This time out, the resolution is rather a cop-out and not much of a surprise in the scheme of things. There are a handful of genuinely spooky moments where I was glad I had the lights on, but they’re a bit thin on the ground and rely on a fair bit of repetition. You'll like this house, with what you write,’ the owner told me mischievously on our first viewing. 'We have three ghosts.’ It turned out he was fibbing – the house, we were to discover later, actually had four . . . Peter James, author of the Det. Roy Grace police procedural series, has turned his deft hand to a new genre with this series, with mixed results. The story is very readable, because James is so skilled at writing narrative and dialogue. But the plot felt repetitive, consisting of a series of odd things happening, Jason and Emily talking themselves into believing that nothing strange is happening, and then more odd things happening. I did enjoy how James resolved the storyline. A few days later, a medium who had helped me a lot during my writing of Possession came to the house, and I took her into the atrium, and left her on her own, as she had requested. This is a great read with strong characters and an addictive story. There are even touches of humour within the haunting chills.I felt a tad cynical about her response – but at the same time, I was now feeling deeply uncomfortable in what should have been the sanctuary of my own home. But there was a vicar I knew who I thought would be able to help, and with whom I had become good friends. Cold Hill House, the huge, crumbling mansion, has been demolished. It’s now being replaced by trendy modern homes with every electrical gizmo there is, including voice-operated gadgets.

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