In The Unrecovered, Richard Strachan weaves a haunting narrative steeped in gothic tradition, skillfully combining the eerie ambiance of a crumbling estate with the profound effects of war and trauma. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Scotland, the story unfurls within the foreboding walls of Gallondean Castle, where the spectral lingerings of the past intertwine with the lives of its present inhabitants. Strachan’s adept storytelling invites readers into a world where history, personal demons, and the supernatural collide, creating a tapestry rich in atmosphere and psychological depth. This review delves into the intricacies of Strachan’s debut novel, exploring its themes, characters, and the chilling yet thoughtful experience it offers.

The Unrecovered by Richard Strachan

A creepy old crumbling house held together by history and secrets? Its brooding lonely master hiding away from the world with only guilt and a sinister servant to keep him company? A family curse that reaches down through the centuries? A period setting in the shadow of a world war?

Tick to all of these. The Unrecovered sits firmly in gothic territory, but familiar genre beats do not always make for a cliched tale, not if the author knows what they are doing.

And Richard Strachan knows what he is doing.

The Edinburgh-based author may not be a familiar name, but he has plenty of writing experience to draw on, notching up and impressive tally of tales for the Warhammer universe.

Not that this effective tale of quiet menace and the true-life horrors of the Great War, back in the days before we had to give them numbers, seems to have much on common with the violent playground of the RPG universe. Which just goes to demonstrate how much Strachan has learned from his literary apprenticeship.

The lonely lord of the manor is Jacob Beresford, too ill to fight in the war himself, but living under the shadow of death due to his failing lungs rather than any enemy action.

However, Jacob is no sickly aristocrat. He owes his occupancy of the Usher-esque Gallondean Castle not to any Norman ancestry, but to his father’s success as undertaker to the colonial British in far-off India.

But that does not mean he will escape Gallondean’s resident spectre, a legend linked to a patricidal knight who carried his murdered father’s hands to the the Holy Land: when the laird of Gallondean dies, that death will be marked by the ghostly howling of a beast from the ominously named promontory of Hound Point.

If the family curse involving a supernatural hound remains anyone of a book from a fellow Scottish author, well, that hasn’t escaped Strachan’s attention either, with one character pointing to the similarities with the most famous Sherlock Holmes story of them all.

‘It sounds like The Hound of the Baskervilles to me,’ she said doubtfully.

Jacob smiled at that. ‘Conan Doyle is an Edinburgh man, isn’t he? Who’s to say one legend didn’t inform the other.’

The other speaker is Esther, serving the war effort in her own way as a volunteer nurse at nearby Roddinglaw, whose status as a widow stands in contrast with her lively young colleagues. Among their broken and wounded charges, men who carry their traumas with them to this peaceful Lothian coast, is Daniel, a veteran and victim of a more recent conflict in the Holy Land and one with his own unknowing connection to Gallondean and its dark history.

Together these three will begin a chain of events which leads to some sort of resolution of Gallondean’s story.

This is no jump-scare horror. If the supernatural impinges on the life of its characters, it is through the uneasy rather than the overt.

Strachan makes good use of Scottish landscape and history, and yes, the weather, to layer on different kinds of chills, adding a light folk horror vibe to the gothic elements.

The Unrecovered sits comfortably within the gothic tradition, but never feels out-dated or a mere pastiche. Strachan’s voice is too distinct for that, and his feel for his characters too sure, while subjects like war-trauma, colonialism and even the nature of the soul give it a satisfyingly thoughtful heft.

The ending, with its dreamlike atmosphere, takes the reader into a very different space from the historically grounded background, but Strachan still manages a satisfying, if not entirely happy solution.

Will Strachan dabble with the supernatural for his next novel? If so, I’ll be more than happy to go along for the ride.

Calum Macleod, Gingernuts of Horror website

I had high hopes for The Unrecovered. A gothic tale set in a brooding Scottish fortress? A mysterious spectral hound? A historical backdrop of World War I and early medicine? On paper, this sounded like everything I love in a book.

And yet… I struggled.

It’s clear that Richard Strachlan has done his research, and the historical details are impressively woven into the story. The atmosphere is suitably eerie, and there are moments where the tension builds effectively. However, the pacing is painfully slow, and the story never quite grips in the way I wanted it to. The characters, while well-drawn, lacked the spark needed to keep me truly invested.

I almost didn’t finish it, which is rare for me. I kept hoping the plot would pick up, that the gothic suspense would take hold, but instead, it remained sluggish and, dare I say, a little lifeless. For those who love deeply atmospheric historical fiction and don’t mind a slow burn, this might still work. But for me, it was just too dull to fully enjoy.

Set in WW1. There are different strands to this book that come together at the end. Caught up in both strands is Esther, a young g war widow working as a volunteer at a convalescence hospital just outside Edinburgh. The hospital is on the windswept coast of the Firth of Forth, close by is the ancient house of Gallondean, a dank dismal building haunted by its past, its current owner is also haunted by the building and its history. Tied to this is one of the soldiers convalescing from injuries received in Palastine, he is another man haunted by what happened to him there.
A meandering take at times, that is not as haunting as I expected but still an interesting tale.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

I must admit that I struggled with this book in some places. My main problem with it is that it just was too long. My Kindle edition is just 291 pages but it sometimes felt as if there were at least a 100 more pages to work through.
Atmospheric? Absolutely! Unsettling? Yes! But also very long winded and I just felt that the stories told in this book – for it is not just one story, but a couple of stories that come together at one point – would have been more interesting were they told in a slightly different order.
The book starts with part of Esther’s story; working in a war hospital in 1918 was even more gruelling than it is now, because of the lack of modern medicine. In this first part, we hardly learn anything about her except that she’s a widow but not a grieving one. Then there is Jacob, reluctant owner of Gallondean, just a half mile away from the hospital. His is a different story because he’s still pining about the loss of his great love. Then there is the story of one of the wounded soldiers, but we only read his story almost at the end of the book. There is something in the lives of Esther, Jacob and the soldier that connects them but what it is and why it is so important stays hidden for too long.
Still, I gave it three stars because I wanted to read on to see what would happen.
Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and Netgalley for this review copy.

After Esther Worrell’s husband is killed early in WWI, she determines to do something to help the war effort.
Esther finds herself at Roddinglaw, a remote country house on the Scottish coast that is used for convalescing soldiers. Helping the wounded men helps Esther keep busy but she can’t avoid the whispers of strange happenings at Gallondean, the nearby home of Jacob Beresford. Jacob recently inherited the dilapidated property from his father, but it is full of secrets and Jacob becomes obsessed with uncovering them.
When Esther runs into Jacob while out walking there is an instant attraction but with so much uncertainty and secrecy surrounding them are they doomed from the start.

I really struggled to get into this one. I found the writing clunky and off-putting. Not for me sadly!

I liked this book, but I did not love it.
The settings were great. A mansion and castle near Edinburgh, and Palestine and elsewhere in World War One.
The characters were good, mainly nursing staff and soldiers.
What did not work for me however were the fantasies worked around the castle and Palestine.
There were also some events that were not properly reacted to in my opinion, such as the soldier who committed suicide.
The story flows well , even with the frequent interjections of the journals.
I also like the interworking of the works of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Browning.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Loss of innocence, life and faith in a future pervades this beautiful novel. The setting is romantic in a wild and stormy east coast of Scotland, the time is troubled, and so are its characters, all recovering in some way from the torment of war. Beresford’s account is so deeply felt, told in the first person, we are privy to a depth of feeling and introspection. He is not immune to war, but is apart from it, being physically unfit for the trenches. He is at pains to delve into the secrets of the decaying house he inhabits, where myth and legend provide fodder for his imagination. In the background to all this is the brutal pain of wartime convalescence, some know that they must return to the battle, others know their bodies will never recover. The VADS must suffer too, for they are caught in the loss too, volunteering to do their bit or distract from personal losses. The writing here is astonishing, evocative, sparse, full of poetry and thought. It is clear that what is unrecovered is life before the war.

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me and I found myself not being able to get into it as it just wouldn't grab my attention. I was wanting more of a ghost story when in actual fact you get a war story focusing on the effects of war. Whilst that genre is not bad, it wasn't want I was looking for and the way it was written just took too long to get into.

This book unfortunately wasn’t for me. I was expecting it to be more “ghostly”? That the wrong word, more…”haunted hound”…that is not what this is, it’s a tale of war, of grief, madness and mental anguish.

If you enjoy war stories, and the mental anguish that follows, then this is absolutely for you, but it was simply the wrong choice of book for me personally. The story and writing is great.

My thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I tried to get into this book, I just couldn't. It never gripped my attention. I thought this would be mostly a supernatural/thriller apart from it didn't deliver much of either.

I requested this based on advanced praise – 'Beautifully written, Stunning, Eerie, Compulsive'. I gave up at 20% failing to find anything stunning, eerie or compulsive. The writing was okay but I found it too descriptive and lacking plot.

Not for me, I'm afraid.

I found this a really hard book to read - gripping at times, atmospheric but so strange.

Gallondean Castle has a checkered past and a curse which haunts the owners. Jacob Beresford, after the unexpected death of his father, inherits and becomes obsessed by the history of the castle and its curse. This obsession drives him to delve deeper and deeper into the past aided by his father’s factor - a mad driven mad by the loss of his son.

Esther, a young widow and VAD nurse at a nearby convalescent home is fighting her own demons, meets Jacob and tries to help him to see a future for himself.

Interwoven in the story are various young men recovering from war wounds to body and mind including a soldier who served in Palestine whose story becomes intwined with Jacob’s - with devastating effects.

An interesting tale - if not wholly convincing.

A great read – lots of surprises and an excellent ending. A high-stakes domestic thriller that is utterly absorbing. Twists and turns abound. 4 stars.

I found this book a hard read, I couldn’t become invested enough with the characters which made it a struggle to read. The thriller/horror scene was there, but not as much as I originally thought. Sorry about that.

The Uncovered is a beautifully written and atmospheric tale that masterfully intertwines themes of war, guilt, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of the gloomy fortress of Gallondean on the Scottish coast, the story unfolds with the chilling local legend that haunts the heirs of the house—if they hear the howling of a spectral hound, death will soon follow.

Jacob Beresford, the current owner, is thrust into this unsettling legacy following the unexpected death of his father. Until then, he had never set foot within the crumbling walls of Gallondean, and the ghosts of his past were more than enough for him. As the First World War lingers through its final months, Jacob uncovers dark and troubling details about his new home, and the shadows seem to grow ever closer.

The narrative takes a poignant turn when Jacob meets Esther, a young volunteer nurse working at nearby Roddinglaw, a country house repurposed as a hospital ward. Recently widowed, Esther harbours dreams of becoming a poet as she cares for the injured men around her, many of whom face life-altering challenges. However, it is a soldier with seemingly minor injuries whose life intertwines with both Esther and Jacob in chilling and unforeseen ways.

Phillips deftly explores the dangers that lurk in the surrounding woods and along the coast, revealing that the most significant threats often reside within the characters themselves. The book is rich in atmosphere, blending elements of adventure, love, and mystery that keep readers engrossed. The characters are well-crafted and relatable, making their struggles and triumphs resonate on a deeper level.

Overall, The Uncovered is an intriguing and multi-layered story that successfully combines suspense with profound emotional depth. I highly recommend it for those who appreciate tales steeped in history and rich with human experience.

Read more at The Secret Bookreview.

This book lured me in with the promise of a gothic manor house, a hospital full of war patients and something supernatural.

Whilst all of those things were present in the book... I just couldn't get into it properly. It started off well, and the promise was good, however as the book went on it just didnt deliver for me. There were a number of ways this book could have gone that i kept thinking were going to unfold, and sadly it didn't really go any of those routes, and towards the end it became a bit of a mish mash of ideas without ever really going anywhere, and i struggled through the last bit.

A great premise overall but sadly a little disappointing, apologies.

Thanks though to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read.

Strange one here. I found it hard to get into but was good overall
Keeps you guessing right to the end.
Enjoyable.
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

The description drew me in - Scottish Gothic castle, WW1, I didn't expect, essentially a story detailing a nurse's grim life in the convalescent hospital with all the associated horrors of physical and mental results from men who survived the trenches. This as coupled with the unwilling return of the heir of the gothic house, consumptive close to death and haunted by myths and legends of the house, his family background and death of his father. Add in a seriously mentally damaged soldier, PTSD although not called that then, and this becomes a 3-person gloom and doom book. The writing was good although the characters felt shallow. I found it hard to finish, not really being engaged and it was certainly a depressing read. The Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.