This is a delightfully creepy little number reminiscent of dreamy psychedelic 70's horror films.
As the book opens an interviewer is questioning the cult filmmaker Nolan Nox about what he thinks happened to his missing daughter, and Nolan Nox is trying to steer the interview back on track. The book then cuts to one year earlier and the event that started the strange chain of events, Nolan Nox attacked in his apartment and Lola sent to Harrow Lake while he recovers.

Harrow Lake is the place that Lola's mother disappeared, and it seems as though the same fate awaits Lola. The locals all seem to have something to hide, the town itself is caught in a strange, nightmarish, time loop with festivals and traditions dedicated to the film that Nolan Nox made there decades earlier, and Lola's Grandma either refuses to talk about her daughter or confuses her for her daughter. The addition of a creepy urban myth about a Mr Jitters complete with song and scary little Jitterbug wooden carved toys that turn up in unexpected places, and I felt the hairs on my neck standing to attention as I turned the pages.

At the heart of the book is Lola, whos bratty, spoiled exterior belies her stoicism and bravery. As the book progresses I found my initial dislike of her melted away as she unearthed far more than she had expected when she decides to find out what happened to her mother. Somewhat confusing at times the creepy tension and atmosphere more than compensates, and the uncertainty between what is real and what is imagined is actually a very good way of understanding how Lola's brain is processing the evidence she finds.

The story wraps up in THE most satisfactory way and I'm looking forward to seeing what the author writes next.

My thanks go to the publishers and Net Galley for the copy in return for an honest review.

Thank to to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an early copy of Harrow Lake.

I'm really, really confused about that one.
To be honest, up until the last couple of pages, I wanted to give up on it because I just did not manage to get invested in the story and the characters.

Lola is just a touch too superficial, and just, let us be frank there, unlikeable. I could not for the life of me begin to understand why she reacted the way she reacted most of the time, and she just sounded weird from the first page on – which does get a bit of an explanation by the end of the book, but just completely threw me for a loop.
Also, the word "Optimal"? Can't see it anymore. Don't like it. No, thank you.

One thing is for sure, the novel is very unsettling, bordering on creepy. The main villain, Mister Jitters, will make you shudder for sure. He's really creepy, and so is the doll that randomly starts appearing throughout the story.
The unreliable narrator also makes you loose your footing and wonder just what the heck is going on. Are we facing a case of demonic puppets? A case of a mentally ill main character? A case of a murderous mother and haunted town?

Gosh, I was so lost.

And then everything got better during the last couple of chapters. Finally, things started making sense. It was a bit too late to my taste, but at least, it managed to get me to finish the novel and give it a couple more stars than I expected.

So, overall, I really wouldn't say that I liked the book, because I was struggling to finish it most of the way through.
I do, however, admire the creepy atmosphere in every single page, and the monsters (real or not) that were created.
I'm very curious to see what Kat Ellis' next book will look like.

Harrow Lake was my first venture into horror/ paranormal genre and I'm delighted to say I loved it!

Our main character is Lola Nox, daughter of a famous film director and actress. When her fathers life is threatened, she is sent to stay with her grandmother on her mother's side in a small town called Harrow Lake. This is the same town where her father filmed his first horror and where he met Lola's mother who played the lead actress.

The town itself is strife with misery, where many past events have affected the people living there. Their only reprieve is the festival held each year in honour of the movie that put their town on the map. Another thing that comes with small town America is urban myths & local legends, and here we have Mr. Jitters.

The story follows Lola as she gets to know the strange town and the stranger people, as she fills in the gaps about her mother and her association with Mr Jitters, and if he is now following Lola.

I absolutely loved this book. I read it mostly at night, so the atmosphere and eeriness was dialled up to 11. The place Harrow Lake is exactly what you expect from 80's theme slasher horror and just takes you right back there as the town and its people never left that era.

The Characters were all fantastic, the usual suspects of adults who got stuck there and kids who are yearning to leave, all stuck in this time bubble because of the movie the town is famous for. The main character Lola was a great protagonist, I felt my reactions would have been similar to hers, not believing in the bogey man but then somethings are just not adding up and making it all so deliciously creepy!

I'm so happy I read this, out of my comfort zone but so worth the sleepless night! Can't wait to read more by Kat Ellis (I can't believe I'm looking forward to being frightened by her again!)

Thank you to Penguin Random House Children’s UK and Netgalley for an early eArc of the book.

Harrow Lake is a YA thriller/horror novel about a young girl and her connection to the town of Harrow Lake, where her mother is from. Our protagonist Lola is the daughter of a famous horror movie filmmaker, and therefore is a resilient horror buff herself who believes that she cannot be scared by much at all. Lolas father is attacked at their home in New York and Lola is sent away back to her mothers hometown of Harrow Lake for her safety. One weird thing about Harrow Lake is that her mother starred in a horror film made my her father in that very town... and the legacy of the movie has carved the town into the map. But even weirder is the strange experiences and legends that now reside in that town. Lola takes her time getting to know the town, and the more she finds out the weirder and scarier it becomes.

I haven't read a ton of YA horror/thriller, and not a ton of adult horror either honestly, so I was apprehensive but excited to pick this one up. It is definitely a genre I want to read more from and I haven't had much success with YA horror yet, so I was hoping this one might change things. I liked Lola, and I liked the links to her family, her mother and this weird and creepy town. Her grandmother, who she is sent to live with during her time at Harrow Lake, is one of those typical weird old estranged grandmothers who appear friendly, but also slightly off. You know the weird old people in horror movies I'm talking about? She was irritating and creepy, but I also thought her dad was bizarrely protective of her, and this became more apparent throughout the book.

It cleverly gives you little hints throughout the story about what might actually happen at the end, and I really appreciated these. They are little nuggets of information that get you thinking and guessing what their relevance are and how they might link up in the end. Ellis has a clever way of misleading you slightly on one hint, then taking it back and I really enjoyed that. I often changed how I felt the book was going to sum up, and I found myself going back and forth from one theory to the next.

I really appreciated the twists, and although I must admit the way the book actually ended was one of my theories, but I was not mad at it. I assumed she might go down another route, which would have been more cliche and annoying in my view, but she didn't. I also really enjoyed how the book began and ended with the interview with her father, it really helped to tie things together.

The one major downside for me was the lost plots. I felt like a lot of stuff was just left unexplained, which kind of left something missing from the full enjoyment for me. I was happy with the ending, sure. I enjoyed what happened and how the main plot wrapped up, but I also wanted to know how everything else came to be. It just needed to be tied in a neater package.

I basically had a really fun time reading this, and it has proven to me that not all YA horror is boring. I will continue to pick up a few more YA horror and hope to be as entertained by them. I will also keep an eye out for Ellis' future books to see if they interest me too!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange of an honest review.

This was not what I was expecting!
The pace was fast and the plot was complex without being confusing.
Lola was an interesting narrator and I found her journey through the stifling town of Harrow Lake deeply compelling.
The frame narrative of the interview with Nolan sets up the story perfectly and then consolidates it neatly at the end.
The story was genuinely frightening at times, and I would definitely reccomend to horror/thriller fans.
My only criticism is that I am still left with a few unanswered questions regarding the other characters in the book, like Ranger Lahey or Marie. Otherwise a really interesting thriller, you won't want to put it down.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book for free in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions.

I liked this book! I’m not a big lover of YA horror, but this kept me gripped. I liked the spooky town setting, it really did feel like an 80s horror film. Definitely can see this being made into a film soon.

"Harrow Lake" has everything for a reader looking to be spooked: underground caves, a mysterious town stuck in the past, missing girls, and a horror movie threatening to come to life.

I did find myself getting a little creeped out in places, which was great! Occasionally a little slow, however, with a little too much introspection: I would have loved more exploration of the historical aspects instead: the mine and the film and the town in particular.

As a teacher of secondary school English, I try to read as much YA fiction as I can. Actually, that's not quite true... I love to read YA fiction and use my job as justification to read loads of it! Teenagers are a very discerning bunch when it comes to fiction - if they are choosing to read, it's because they want a great story, and I find that they don't often put up with slow burns.

The real USP of this novel is the cinematic backstory. There's a load of film references here and it will really appeal to film fanatics. It's set around Nolan, a famous film-director, his wife and star of his hit film 'Nightjar', Lorelei, and the town of Harrow Lake, where the film was filmed. I found 'Harrow Lake' to be cross between 'Chucky', 'Arachnophobia' and 'The Wicker Man' - plenty of creepiness, but at a level of horror that even I could cope with - if it were a film, I'd rate it a 12 rather than an 18. If there is a negative point that I'd make about this novel, it would be that it wants to be all genres of horror (insects, graveyards, monsters and humans) rather than just sticking to one.

I think that 'Harrow Lake' will be a really popular read this year. It's fast-paced, and features interesting characters, fabulous settings, and some great twists.

From GoodReads:
Sounds great: a mysterious backwater town with a box full of urban legends. More often than not though, I wasn't creeped out/scared at all.
I'm afraid I didn't warm to Lola at all (what was with the annoying 'Optimal') and am still not quite sure what we going on at some points.

But, this was quite good fun and a a pageturner and I can see it being a great intro into 'horror' for some YA readers. Good cover on the final version too.

I think I was about the only person on a recent tour who did not like this book. And I am going to be extremely upfront as to why. This was the WORST depiction of mental health related issues I have ever read. I found the use of multiple different health issues from PTSD to dementia as plot devices distasteful, and not once was any character offered help for those issues. I think that is extremely careless in this day and age, to have these front and centre without bringing them back to the key issue of getting help.

This being the primary driving of the plot meant I did not enjoy the plot. The "horror" aspect being intrinsic to the is it real or is it due to the MC's PTSD, hallucinations and compulsive behaviour. I get that the author was trying to go for the unreliable narrator, but again I just didn't agree with this choice especially when no other perspective was offered. I also found it to be quite predictable I could see the big reveal from the beginning.

In terms of character development in my opinion there wasn't much apart from the story of the Mc's mother, who was a main focus. Due to the choice of narration style there was a distinct style to the voice. Again some of these choices I found to be very poor taste. The MC repeats the word "OPTIMAL" in a compulsive fashion as if to sooth her. None of this is discussed in the text. The writing style was quite staccato at points, jumping, chopping and changing which I guess is supposed to be disorientating but instead just threw me out of the story.

On the plus side there was some really atmospherics descriptions and this is what brought the book up to a two star read as these had some great imagery. The ending had an alright little twist. That was until the author wrote herself her own 5 star review of the book as part of the narrative!?! Overall this just left a bad taste in my mouth. I would most likely not have finished it if it wasn't an ARC.

From the outset this book reminded me of 'It', a town with a haunted history, and a number of mysterious disappearances, unfortunately it just didn't come to fruition. I found it difficult to bond with the characters and I have to say I was disappointed with the ending. Maybe I expected too much from it.

Capable of infecting your mind, altering your breathing rate, and shot-gunning your pulse, Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis absolutely crawled beneath my skin and had me lying in bed, wide awake, wondering what that noise was I heard just a few moments ago… The wind rattling the bathroom blinds, surely? In the same league as Slenderman, old folk tales and chilling legends, Harrow Lake had that all-encompassing quality that never truly lets you be, once the ‘what ifs’ have settled in your mind. Terrifying, but on a subtle level, a level which is more disturbing than frightening, the sort of thing you’re scared of but still completely fascinated by. I loved allowing the author to smother me with this tale, I loved the feeling of terror which she evoked, and I found Mister Jitters to be quite appalling, to say the least.

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis is a superbly dark and atmospheric novel, with a certain sense of dread laced around each and every word. It’s a sinister tale that takes the readers’ imagination hostage, and runs wild and wicked with it, slotting strange and feverish images into the mind, and ensuring those images remain long after the final page has been turned. This is a unique and exciting story, one I’m delighted to have discovered in the Twitter-sphere, and one which I’m certain would not look out of place if it were to be adapted for the big screen. You’d see me outside queueing up to watch the movie adaptation for sure.

The story behind Mister Jitters and Harrow Lake was a fascinating one, and it reminded me very much of the stories I heard as a child and teenager. From the bogeyman, to the chilling tale of Bloody Mary, to the more recent arrival of Slenderman, Mister Jitters had that same quality of monster which has people running up the stairs after turning out the lights, too afraid to glance behind themselves. What I found most admirable though, was the authors’ obvious dedication to truly bring Mister Jitters to life by adding vibrancy and colour to an entire history surrounding him, and the place he comes from. It was incredible, and I think it certainly had the desired effect on me as the reader. For the author to achieve such an authentic feel to what can only be described as an urban legend, there is a huge amount of creativity and thought that must have gone into the creation of Harrow Lake and its monster.

The characters within Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis were wonderfully unique and certainly made the discovery of this small town in Indiana memorable. We join Lola, daughter of Nolan Nox, as she is sent away to Harrow Lake to stay with her grandmother while her father recuperates in hospital after a brutal attack. The padding surrounding the Nox family was fascinating to read and again, it quickly became clear how much thought had gone into bringing these characters to life and ensuring they leapt off the page and straight into the readers’ imagination. The relationship between father and daughter in Harrow Lake was a complex one, and one that both intrigued yet confused me. As further details of Nolan and Lola’s life together began to unfold further as the plot progressed, I began to realise that this was so much more than just a scary story with a strange monster at its heart. It went much deeper and darker than I had originally anticipated, and in such a clever, secretive way, I couldn’t help but to marvel at the authors’ skill afterwards. There was a ton of mystery within this novel, so much so I felt certain I’d never figure out the truth behind Lola’s past and her family history.

I really loved the movie aspect of this novel, too. Not only does Lola travel to Harrow Lake to stay with her grandmother while her father remains in hospital, but Harrow Lake also happens to be the place where Nolan Nox’s bestselling movie, Nightjar, is set. It’s the movie which made Nolan Nox famous, and it is visited every year by millions of fans and tourists who are desperate to see the very real setting where the horror movie came to life. Knowing that Harrow Lake has such a history to it already really makes it feel all the more authentic, and rich with secrets. Learning of Nolan Nox and his career, and also what effect it had on his relationship with his daughter Lola, was fascinating, and made me enjoy the story all the more. I also enjoyed watching Lola interact with the other inhabitants of Harrow Lake, those of which all had their own stories to tell about the town. It was impossible not to get sucked into the tattle-taling, and to believe that something evil was lurking in Harrow Lake.

All in all, Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis was a harrowing, twisted and spine-tingling tale, exploring the very essence of childhood, of growing up, and of how some of the worst things we deal with when we’re young can, incredibly, take the shape of anything we choose. Mister Jitters played on my mind long after I turned the final page of this novel, and I’m certain he’ll do the same with other readers, too. I won’t be forgetting him in a hurry…
With thanks to the publisher for the advanced reading copy of this book, that of which has no reflection on me providing a fair and honest review.

A fun and involving horror novel for teens in which a girl goes back to the town in which her dad - a famous film director - shot his most notorious work. It's atmospheric and gripping, and I think it will work fantastically for its target audience.

Many thanks to The Write Reads and Penguin for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Harrow Lake is a dark, creepy book where one town’s local boogeyman becomes a little too real for a New York girl who visits there. But sometimes boogeymen exist for a reason.

This one was really hard for me to rate, especially, because I don’t do half ratings, but this felt a lot like a half to me. Not a three, but not quite a four. And what do you do with that? Aside from drink. Drinking is always an option. Ultimately, I went with three stars, but what even are stars, really? Other than fireflies stuck in the big bluish-black thing, of course.

My Thoughts:

- Since we’re all here for the spooky, let’s talk about that first. I’d say this is more psychological thriller than horror, but whatever you want to classify it, it’s downright creepy, and I loved it. I read a lot of early reviews for this blog tour (benefits of going almost last), and everyone was talking about the creep factor. 20% in I was like pfffft, what wussies everyone is. This isn’t that bad. By 35%, I had all the lights in my house on, and by 50%, I had forsaken sleep, because I live in a rural place and there’s tapping everywhere and OMG I DIDN’T HANG ANYTHING ON THE BONE TREE, EITHER, AND WHAT IF THAT’S MISTER JITTERS AT THE WINDOW?

- Ellis does a fabulous job of playing with the small-town setting and feeding into the local lore that every small town has. I, too, came from a small town. Of course we had our local legends, because what else are all these people going to do once they’re tired of seeing the same faces every day for the rest of their lives? Invent new faces! And why not make them scary? More fun that way. For Harrow Lake, the local legend is Mister Jitters, and there’s plenty of superstition surrounding him, which weaves this pervasively eerie atmosphere, with a subtle hint of dread. It was fine until it wasn’t, basically. When things start to go downhill, they really go downhill. I enjoyed the quaint town as a setting, and it really helped ramp up the creep factor.

- More than just the setting or monsters lurking in the dark yearning to eat your bones, one of the creepiest things about this book is the relationship between Lola and her father, Nolan. In fact, there’s a theme here of fathers and daughters and their relationships that I really don’t want to discuss. Suffice it to say that the first red flag is that Lola calls her father Nolan and thinks nothing of it. But ohoho, that’s mild. It gets so much worse from there. While it’s clear to the reader almost immediately, Lola has to discover her own independence bit by bit, which was one of my favorite parts of the book. The transformation in her ended up being a really powerful one for me, and it’s one of the things I particularly enjoyed about this book.

- There’s the requisite teen romance in this book, and whether that’s a good thing or bad thing depends on what you’re after, I suppose. For me, it was unnecessary. It didn’t add anything to the story, and it didn’t seem to go anywhere. It’s one of those points that ended up dropped in the ending and had no clear wrap-up, which was frustrating for me. This relationship would’ve been stronger (and less frustrating about not being “wrapped up”) if it were just a friendship. On the other hand, for a teenager who’s just earning her freedom and getting out from the oppressive thumb of her father? A light fling is realistic. Probable, even. Despite the fact that nothing actually happens. So this could really go either way. For the target audience, as teenagers, at least having feelings of attraction and such would be totally relatable, even if nothing happens, and maybe, in one aspect, that’s actually a fresh approach to the YA romance front, where not every romance needs to blossom into a lifelong love affair. Maybe a little teen flirting and banter suffices.

Sticking Points:

- Lola has an obsession with doing the Optimal thing (capitalized like that), and it became extremely repetitive. I was not a fan of this. First, it didn’t end up being rooted in something solid enough for me. Not a quote from her father or something ingrained in her from her childhood. I think it would’ve gone over better for me, personally, if there had been a more solid grounding. Even so, the word itself paired with how often it was used just felt super clunky to me.

- I loved the ending, but it still felt like there were strings blowing in the wind from the middle section of the book. Not everything was as tied up as I’d have hoped, and there’s a lot of extrapolation and guesswork a reader has to do. I loved the conclusion of Lola’s arc, but then I thought back to the rest of the novel and was like … wait … what about this? This ending doesn’t explain X, Y, and Z that happened. Whether this bothers you or not depends on the sort of reader you are. I love my thriller tied up with a neat, little bow, and it didn’t quite explain away everything.

- As far as good mental health rep, this book hasn’t got it, so if that’s a potential trigger for you, give this a pass. I’m not a huge fan of the “mental illness as a plot point” trope in thriller, and this isn’t necessarily that … but just barely. Harrow Lake manages to just skirt blaming mental illness for things, though it is clear throughout the book that Lola has some mental health problems. On the one hand, they make perfect sense to the plot, and they’re pretty realistic, given everything that happens. The biggest problem for me was just that they weren’t addressed in any way, so like above, the idea that she had these problems is kind of left blowing in the wind, with no conclusion.

I’m a bit older than YA age but this didn’t stop my enjoyment of Harrow Lake. Lola Nox is the daughter of horror filmmaker Nolan Nox who disappears at the beginning of the book. Ellis then takes us back a year to Harrow Lake where Lola’s father’s most famous film is set. What follows is a trip through your worse nightmares. There are secrets, landslides and the very creepy Mr Jitters. The town itself is a fabulously monstrous character and was probably my favourite if I’m honest. Lola was a little two-dimensional but that didn’t stop me racing through this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK Children’s for my ARC

First of all, look at that cover. Is that not the creepiest thing to look at late at night?? I'm glad I read this on my Kindle to be honest. I've been trying to read more horror books lately, and so when I saw that Harrow Lake was up on NetGalley I swept it up.

I have to say, the atmosphere of this book is on point. It's suuuuuper creepy for the first two thirds when you have no idea what's going on. Lola, the main character, goes to stay in a small town with a grandmother that she barely knows, and is surrounded by rumours of her vanished mother. It's CREEPY. There are creepy puppets and shadows and noises. I had to stop reading it late into the night because some parts were giving me chills. Kat Ellis pulled the atmosphere off perfectly.

As for the plot, I would say it's pretty standard for a YA horror. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, because I definitely did, but it's not something that I will rave about and I wouldn't say that the twist(s) were anything spectacular. I was't necessarily reading this horror book for the twists though, because what I really wanted was to be creeped out and on the edge of my seat because of FEAR.

I did feel a bit disconnected from Lola, especially because she seemed to hate everyone that she came into contact with. While this made sense for her character (and be patient if you don't necessarily get it in the beginning) it made it quite hard for me to fall in love with the story and her journey.

I think if you're into classic horror movies then you'll really enjoy Harrow Lake for the chilling atmosphere and the sleepless nights!

If I'd had the chance I would have read this book in one sitting. The plot moves at the right speed and the characters are relatable. I loved all the nods to other horror stories and films such as The Yellow Wallpaper that made discovering each Easter Egg very enjoyable.

I felt that the doll part of the plot was unnecessary, otherwise all the other elements were suitably creepy.

The plot point about coercive control was subtle and I hope this arms readers against future harm.

Overall an enjoyable read and I'm going to read through the author's back catalogue.

enjoying this book. Very interesting plot. The characters take a while to get used to but when you do you will find this one a real page Turner.

Enjoyed this book and was surprised by the twist near the end of the book. A book full of suspense and made me want to get to the end to see what became of everyone. Felt I knew Lola quite well by the end of the book.

But...did she get together with Carter? Did carters mum get found? Where did Lola go? A few too many unanswered questions. But overall a good read

Kat Ellis you have taken me on a delightful, creepy and disturbing journey! Lola is not a character I want to be; her mum walked out when she was little and her dad is distant, neglectful and just too famous and busy to be bothered and initially she seems quite bland. Forced to stay with her grandmother for a while, you would hope that she would finally have an adult to take an interest in her and give her some love and support, but no. However, once Lola arrives at the tiny 1920s town of Hallow Lake, there are some moments of kindness in store for her, but there are layers and layers of uncomfortable secrets and mysteries to uncover as we read on.
I love the creepy urban myth of Mister Jitters that the town residents delight in as well as the back story of Lola's parents meeting in the town when her director dad casts her mom as his replacement leading lady... queue sinking graveyards, an abandoned film set, a creepy amusement park and two lifetimes of family nastiness. Bravo, I loved this.