I loved this! I haven’t read much of books that have British folklore - and this was such a nice and interesting surprise. I liked the more sinister types of folk and the way the author described them.
I enjoyed reading the battle as well of the old ways vs new ways- this part reminded me the Bear and the Nightingale

A spooky, bewitching and somewhat ethereal read from a new to me author. The writing style was so captivating and I felt like I couldn't put it down for even one moment.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Solaris/Rebellion for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: death, corpses, religion, fire, grief, self-harm, injury, child death, animal injury

In Cornwall, 1786, the world of fairies and the other folk is being crushed under the spreading of the Christian religion. This is most true in the village of Mirecoombe, a place where fairies, brownies and pixies have lived in peace and understanding with humanity for centuries. Lord Pelagius Hunt, a Keeper, is in charge of keeping this balance and is required to aid humans and fey as part of his job. However Pel is old, one eye given willingly for the gift of sight to see the fairies, and belief in the old ways is fading. This isn’t helped by Reverend Cleaver, once an ally of Pel’s and now his biggest enemy, who calls on the village people to turn away from their heathen ways and towards the Lord. A series of violent deaths, bodies found with the imprint of a palm on their throats, in the moor drives the villagers away from Pel’s weary protection and towards Cleaver’s promises of redemption. Nancy Bligh was stolen by the fairies as a child and brought home by Pel, who raised her to embrace her natural gifts with the fey but never to use the incredible power she carries called the Murmur. Now twenty-one, she is determined to do the job he won’t as Keeper: to bring the two worlds together and remain friends with humans, fairies and everything in between. As the murders escalate and Pel’s actions over the years are found to be the reason why, Nancy is forced to step up and take over his role before Miercoombe can fall even further into a darkness that nothing can save them from, not even the prayers of Cleaver.

I raced through this book so quickly, caught up in the gorgeous use of language and setting of ‘Gorse’ and finding myself incredibly invested in the father/daughter relationship between aged and exhausted Pel and young, brilliant Nancy (along with their old dog Patroclus, who is the most loyal friend) as they try to keep some semblance of a balance between the old ways of the moor and the growing influence of Christianity (spearheaded by a vengeful, passionate priest). As I was reading through this I was reminded of ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell’, one of my favourite books, but there’s something completely original here as well- the fairies and other folk are cruel and violent but also protective and reliable as long as you are fair to them. There is nothing romanticised about this world, it’s made very clear that to function the two worlds need careful balance. One of the best parts of the book is when Pel travels to the Undermoor, the land where the souls of fairies go upon death, and communicates with their King. I loved Nancy immediately, she has so much life inside of her and is determined to be better than Pel, even if it means a huge risk to herself. The village of Miercoombe is a character all of itself, filled with wildflowers and ancient stones and I never wanted to leave. The entire world feels untamed and wild, fraught with risk and incredibly real. ‘Gorse’ is a beautiful, dark book which balances many themes- that of parents and their children, religion and tradition, passing on the torch, grief, love and loss- inside of a gorgeously written narrative. I don’t know if there’s going to be more books in this world but I know that this is a story I’ll be thinking about for a very long time.

Amazing story great character building not my normal read but it was amazing. I now know I like this genre I will be reading more.

I really wanted to love this book but it strayed too far into the fantasy side of things for me. There's lots to love but also a too much to dislike

A unique, dark fantasy with wonderfully enchanting writing. Thick with folklore and riddled with the difficulties of village life, Gorse sucks you into its world from page one. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an arc of this book.

I loved the premise of this book, but I wasn’t completely hooked into it for a long while. I found the first half slow and dragging. There were a lot of long descriptions of the moor and Mirecoombe village, lasting pages and pages till the reader almost looses the thread of the plot. It did set up the ending of the story, but it really dragged its feet getting there.

The standout positives of this book for me were Pel and Nancy. The development of the relationship between them was well-written, and was really nice to see. Nancy’s ending was fantastic and suited her character perfectly. I would love to read more about the Nancy, and late addition character the Tattooist, but the style of writing does lessen my interest.

The Cornish folklore inclusions in the story were lovely, and thought the contrast between the folklore and the church was an interesting topic. However I did find the ‘villain’ reveal a little underwhelming

Gorse is an interesting book that feels, to me, more like a set up for the rest of the series than a self-contained story. It’s much darker than other faerie fantasy novels. The style of writing is what hold this book back for me, it took me weeks to get through the sluggish dense writing of the first half. Though there were interesting mechanics of magic added later to the story, for me it didn’t make up for the dragging descriptions.

I hope this book finds its way into the hands of readers who love long and drawn out descriptions, as the story at its heart is a good one.

Happy Reading! xx

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, for my digital review copy.

"Magic on the moor is life and death, and there's no escaping either."

It's 1786 on the Cornish moors. For years, Lord Pel Hunt has been the intermediary between the people in his village, and the magical fey, creatures who can help farmers with crops, or aid with the weather. But, the fey are angry: Most villagers are now turning to the Reverend's pulpit, where they're told there are no such beings as fey, and that worshipping them are the work of the devil.

Then, a body is found on the moor. And another. And another. Pel, as Keeper, refuses to investigate unless the villagers ask him to. So, his protege, Nancy Bligh, skilled with magic, begins to look into it. What she finds, is darker than anything she could have imagined.

The author is excellent at using words to paint vivid pictures – rich imagery of the moors and their mystery and magic. I could feel the oppressive darkness.

I found the book very slow, however. I'd say it's heavily character-based with lots of world-building, which could have been cut down a bit to make way for a story with a faster pace. The author gets bogged down in describing the landscape, the fey and what village life is like, instead of giving the reader a little more action to keep them engaged.

It took me quite some time to get through this book due to its slow pace. It's the first in a trilogy, and while I did enjoy parts of this story, I'm not sure I'll read the sequels.

This story blends myth and mystery against a backdrop of 1700s Cornwall and warring religions. There's a very poetic, folkloric writing style that absolutely adds to the atmosphere, but which I struggled with at times. This is very slow-paced, and although I enjoyed this at times, at other times I felt like there needed to be a bit more going on. It's a very dark tale, of faith versus folklore, which was really interesting and devastating, at times, to read. I think it's a mistake to market this book as 'The Bear and the Nightingale' meets 'Poldark' - it's definitely more 'The Bear and the Nightingale' vibes; the only 'Poldark' thing about it is that it's set in Cornwall, so I think my expectations were different to what they should have been. I also think this book would have functioned much better simply as a standalone - it doesn't need to be a series. I got really emotional at a couple of scenes in here, particularly those between Nancy and Pel, and I'm excited to see what the author does next, as I think there's a lot of potential here!

Forget Poldark! I can’t believe the blurb goes there. ‘Gorse’ is Cornish, yes, but it’s a novel of spells, of fairyfolk and lore, of clan. It’s dark, it’s involved, and - for me - ‘Gorse’ boasts of just the thing I want to be reading for autumn/Samhain. So… even though I normally avoid male-authored fiction, I bent the rule for this one because it sounded so enthralling:

‘Miles deep, where the bletting landscape of the Undermoor rots under its puddle moon, rain falls. Nancy’s magic easing the return of the dead. As hoof and limb and claw pass through the rippling sky they transmute into the glittering stardust they came from in drifts against the trunks of trees, settle between blades of grass until needed again.'

At first, I thought Sam K. Horton’s writing showy and smug. But overall, ‘Gorse’ is worth sticking with, if – like me – you’re drawn to the subject matter. Verbosity persists throughout the novel, but some of the author’s overwritten style (reviewers are using the word ‘decadent’) wears off around the halfway point and, as the passage above shows, there are moments when he manages to pull back on this indulgent tone to write some really entrancing prose.

The novel’s subtitle could very well be ‘Faith Versus Folklore’. The cast of characters includes many of what we in Ireland, sister Celtic Nation of Cornwall, would call the Sidhe; the fae:

‘First come the smallest of them, the piskies. Lace wings fluttering at their backs. It’ll be them Pel’s keenest to speak to with their lights out in the bogs. They’re the ones that lead men astray in the night-time, keep a husband from a wife. No more reason to it than that they can, no morality here, no motive. It was they who swapped out Nancy as she lay mewling in her crib. […] Next are the spriggans, small and rocky fronted with quartz running across their backs in veins. Moss growing damp on their shoulders and a diamond in each eye. Creatures to watch closely. As troublesome as the piskies, but with a mean streak to boot.’

As contrast then, we have the intrusion of Christianity upon the scene, which did catch like wildfire throughout Cornwall during that century. The figure of Cleaver (what a great euonym!), our religious radical, raging and severe in his beliefs, counters the sway of the fae folk upon the populace:

“It is the Lord’s own [hand]. Vengeful and old. God had seen my strife, seen my effort to repair this place […]. Seen how I had been thwarted by a godless man. […] It is as Milton promised. ‘Should intermitted vengeance arm against his red right hand.’”

In terms of the two main parts, though, Pel and Nancy, I found Pel – the male character in this split narrative – to be dug-into deeply, handled with emotion and depth by Horton, a lot of time given over to establishing character through descriptions of his home, his history, his motivations and inner conflicts. Conversely, I found Nancy all superficial – Horton overdwells on her appearance and her surface actions. This disparity between the gendered dual protagonists vexed me. Nancy seemed to me naturally the more compelling character.
I found the Pel’s-point-of-view parts of ‘Gorse’ to be full of self-aggrandisement, (which is that character’s hubris, to be fair), but I found the parts with Nancy totally engrossing. Though she lacks the level of development given Pel by the author, Nancy is accorded the most opportunities for compelling action; she gets the complex situations, the tension, the rising action. But she’s stymied by this male character, who’s overdone, inflated, who obstructs her over and again for the sake of his own pomposity. The author simply failed to convince me with these two characters; they’re too easy to pluck apart like this under scrutiny. I could almost see written under Nancy’s half of the narrative, a traceable version of her story where she’s tendered a full and flourishing character-driven narrative. It’s in there, just begging to be unbound and released from the text that we’ve got. My only placation is that I guess all this is the reasoning behind Horton’s surprise ending to ‘Gorse’.

I’m being sanctimonious here, amn’t I? But my last earnest response is that I hate the ending, and I hate that this is going to be made into a series. I don’t think the characters have enough puff left in them to make this a series! At the end, it seemed to me as though the author just resorted to a rapid fire of facts thrust at the conclusion, effectively saying “I tie up this loose end like this, and this one like that…” I found everything after Nancy’s big scene in the chapel to be anticlimactic, and honestly, this probably lost my rating a star.

However! As usual, all hail that divine cover (this seems to be the main feature/quality upon which I make NetGalley requests!). I’ve been trying to find out who the artist is, because I think it’ll be a notable standout cover art amongst 2024 fiction.

My thanks to Rebellion Publishing for an ARC of this title .

Historical Fantasy. Folklore meets Faith. Dark Fantasy. Buzz words to lure me in, but the story fizzled out and the characters fell flat.

The writing was my first issue. The prose was overly descriptive and long winded. The way the sentences were structured felt off to read, but fortunately this improved as the book went on. The long form writing didn't and that took away from what story was there.
The story...it didn't seem to be going anywhere, but had a lot to say.
And the characters were boring and flat.

I really struggled to finish and I only stuck with it in the hope of more.

I wouldn't grab this book.

Usually I don’t like saying this book is like these other two books thrown together, but in this case I think it’s really fitting to say that this is like a dark(er) mix of The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries, set in 18th century Cornwall. It’s moody with a strong female lead and it has many fae-like creatures, some wholesome, some very gruesome. Its prose is lyrical and beautifully written, perfect for autumn.

Unfortunately I somehow found it very difficult to focus on this book, even though I can say that it’s objectively very well written. But it’s a slow read, you have to pay attention to appreciate its beauty, and as I had a lot of stuff going on, I wasn’t really able to give it the full attention it deserves. Apart from that (solely personal) problem, I enjoyed this book a lot. The setting is amazing and the moor so well-described that pictures immediately appear in your mind. The various creatures and characters make for an interesting cast, although I sometimes found it hard to remember names or keep people apart.

The plot is simple; not boring, the focus just is more on the atmosphere and the confrontations between characters. The conflict of pagan and christian beliefs and how they can maybe coexist reminded me a lot of The Winternight Trilogy, but more grown-up. I find it to be a very interesting topic and liked how it was portrayed here. This is not a cozy book, it’s brutal and gory at times, but even though I’m not the typical horror-reader, I wasn’t too grossed out, apart from a few paragraphs which I skimmed.

From my rambling you can probably deduct that this book is difficult to describe, but if you like moody gothic horror novels, strong female leads and a host of faerie creatures, good and evil, then you’ll definitely like this book! It’s the perfect read for a foggy autumn afternoon and to evoke a craving to visit England and all its rural, hidden corners. Thanks to Solaris and Netgalley for the eARC!

**Thank you to the publisher Rebellion and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review**

I loved Katherine Arden's Winternight series, and so to see this promoted for her fans, as a similar concept grounded in British folklore... I was instantly excited. Unfortunately, the comparison massively oversold the book for me. Maybe it was just my high expectations that let it down so heavily, but Gorse is dry, info-dumpy and the pacing is so stop start. I never felt drawn into the story or the atmosphere and struggled through it to the end.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book.

Gorse follows The Keeper (Lord Hunt) and his apprentice/ward Nancy Blight through their most difficult challenge to date. Set in the remote village of Mirecoombe, surrounded by by moorland, in the 1700s, the setting acts as prophetic fallacy of what is to come. With faith in the old ways declining in favour of Christianity, The Keeper is feeling bitter towards the villages and redundant. Nancy wants to take a different approach, but begins the story scuppered by The Keeper. A series of deaths in the moorland surrounding the village bring tensions to a head and it is down to The Keeper and Nancy to figure out who the killer is and how to bring balance back between our world and the Underworld.

It took me some time to get through this novel and I found it struggled to get going while not doing a lot of world-building. I don’t mind a slower pace if I feel I am learning about the people or the setting involved but this didn’t really offer that for me. Things picked up on the second half and got more engaging. I found the “twist” to be predictable from about 50 pages in so struggled to feel much tension through the book. I warmed a number of the characters, such as Madge, the pub landlady, and also Nancy’s relationship with Pel the dog. I also enjoyed the way in which the author tapped into existing folklore and herbal associations to tie into the spells and charms used. This appears to have been a popular read, but it just didn’t click for me.

2.5 stars rounded up

I struggled through this one. I initially DNFed at around 20% for what I chalked up to bad timing. But I returned a couple of weeks after and read again from the start. That initial 20% was maybe the best part for me and I should have probably stopped there. The set up of the killings and the atmosphere of an isolated parish where people go to Sunday service but also still leave offerings for the piskeys etc. was really good.

The writing style is pretty slow and very descriptive. There were some great quotes in the beginning, but over time it just got more and more grating and unfortunately I stopped caring.

The best stones have gone, taken to form the cornerstones of farmhouses, the foundation of a church. Old pagan rocks holding the new world on their shoulders.

He is no fool, the Reverend. He knows how things stand. The old ways are a fraying cloth, stretched tight across the landscape. Mended here and there by those that care. Held tightly by its weavers. It will, eventually, wear right through. Just tattered scraps of fabric, catching on the gorse.

I really liked the idea of the Keeper, the "person chosen to watch the line, the fragile one that separates us from Them, one from the other." And Pel and Nancy's relationship was the strongest thing about the story, the conflict of Pel holding Nancy back in her magical studies but also the clear love they have for each other as father and daughter, even unacknowledged. But I think I was hoping for more from the clash between the Christian and the belief in the Undermoore.

Also, if you aren't sick of seeing the word "gorse" by the end of this relatively short book, then idk, cos I was.

Thank you for sharing this book with me. I thought this was a wonderful piece of dark and mysterious fiction that kept me intrigued and entertained throughout. Great read!

I was so excited for this book, as it was described as being like The Bear and the Nightingale meets Poldark, and as a Cornish girl I was thrilled to have a historical fantasy which takes place in my home county. However, it fell a tad short.

It's representation of classic Cornish folklore and fairytale was exemplary, however, the pacing was a tad too slow and far too flowery - it made completing extremely hardgoing and I found myself having to take several breaks throughout to collect myself and read something else as a palette cleanser.

As someone whose favourite series is Katherine Arden's Winternight Trilogy, I am not adverse a slow-worldbuilding writing style but this one missed the mark for me.

A darkly atmospheric and visual book, Gorse examines the conflict between religion and belief. Horton takes this theme and weaves it into a dark tale set in 18th century Cornwall.

This is the first fantasy I have read in a while, and I found it hard to put it down. Horton’s descriptions and imagery are all-consuming. The images he creates through his use of language and storytelling are incredibly vivid and atmospheric, creating memorable visions within my head.

Horton treads the balance of history and fantasy effectively; showing life in a Cornish village where beliefs and tradition have maintained the balance with the Fairfolk for centuries. He pits this sense of history and tradition, and rural Cornish life, against creative fantastical scenes full of imagination.

Conflict is a key theme throughout. This stems from conflict between the Church and superstition, between the villagers and The Keepers (Pel and Nancy, and between the fey folk themselves.

This was a dark, gritty and compelling novel

Book review 📚
Gorse by Sam K. Horton
⭐⭐⭐

Gorse is dark, historical fantasy and unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I got 29% in before I decided to DNF. Although the writing was fantastic and had great descriptions, there was just not enough happening to keep me engaged. That may be different for other readers, but it just wasn’t enough for me,

Set in 18th-century Cornwall, Gorse is a captivating work of speculative fiction that weaves a dark and decadent folk tale. Described as a blend of The Bear and the Nightingale and Poldark, with echoes of Midnight Mass and Midsomer Murders, this novel explores the tensions between old and new faith in a traditional rural village, immersing readers in a world filled with unease and intrigue.

The narrative challenges readers to slow down and savour the rich, atmospheric prose that permeates every page. It delves into the conflict between religion and superstition, illustrating how beliefs shape not only individual lives but also the very essence of identity. Gorse demands contemplation, making it a thought-provoking read for those who appreciate literature that invites deep reflection.

If you enjoy books that challenge conventions and linger in sumptuous language, Gorse is a must-read that will leave you captivated throughout.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk