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The village of Heptonclough is home to two churches, one an ancient ruin, the other recently reopened after standing unused for years. Harry Laycock, the new vicar, has the task of building up a congregation and getting to know the locals, including the Fletcher family, who have moved into a house surrounded on three sides by a graveyard. Tom, the eldest of the Fletcher children sees a mysterious child lurking around the church and becomes convinced that his young sister is at risk. During a run in with some rowdy teenagers, Harry meets psychiatrist, Evi, who is doing her best to treat Gillian, a young woman who lost her little girl in a fire that destroyed their home. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Gillian is convinced that her daughter survived. Evi finds herself attracted to Harry but matters are complicated by Gillian's obvious infatuation for the young vicar. It soon becomes clear that Heptonstall is by no means the safe, peaceful village that it appears on the surface. BLOOD HARVEST gets off to a suitably creepy start with Harry Laycock being summoned by the police to a graveyard that has partially collapsed onto the Fletcher's property, exposing old graves. Unpleasant enough in itself, but matters go further down hill when one of the graves contains more bodies than it should have done. To make things worse, the bodies are those of children. My dominant impression of this book is how well S.J.Bolton succeeds in bringing a feeling of creeping menace to her narrative without crossing the line into simple horror story territory. The story is magnificently reminiscent of THE WICKER MAN, with a wonderful blend of sinister locals and bemused incomers. The archaic rituals the villagers set such store by stay just on the right side of parody whilst still managing to be spine-tingling and unpleasant. The narrative is well-paced and rarely flags and the final show-and-tell, even with the inevitable 'sit down and discuss the plot' moment, kept me guessing for long enough to be satisfying. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, June 2011
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