I started reading this a while ago and have continued to try picking it back up. Each time I find myself putting it down due to either a feeling of being confused by the disjointed nature of the story, or disturbed by some of the more gruesome and horrific elements.

Having recently attempted to read Catriona Ward's new novel - The Last House on Needless Street - I suspect her writing style, and the horror elements that she weaves into her novels so well, may just be too unsettling and disturbing for me. Her writing is vivid and almost visceral - which makes it very powerful and emotive - but it's too unsettling for my tastes so I've decided not to continue with Rawblood.

I'm sure other readers will love this book - the author is certainly a fantastic writer and I'm sure horror fans will find her work compelling. Just not quite to my taste unfortunately.

I started reading this a while ago but just couldn't get on with it - it felt very disjointed, confusing and disturbing. However, always reluctant to leave a book unread, I eventually returned to it this week. Unfortunately I still found it as unsettling as before - but not because of the theme. I was unable to relate well enough with the characters and events as they seemed to jump about too much. Hence, I was unable to really connect with the story.

Rawblood doesn’t live up to expectations. It feels as though the book has been written backwards but I'm not sure the best way to explain. The first chapter with Iris is hard to read but fine. The introduction of the doctor, from twenty odd years ago, is fine. It's after this everything starts to feel disjointed. I understand how all the characters are connected but there's just a mess of information that doesn't prepel the story on. For me, 70% of the book needed to be reworked.

My other issue was the terrible, inauthentic dialogue. Yes, the Victorians spoke differently to us but the book makes it read like carricature. Such convoluted and flowery speech would have seen a short conversation run for hours if they actually spoke as written.

Then there's Shakes. This man must have been dust by the time we reach 1916. If Shakes returned to Devon with Iris' grandfather and we make him 25, he would be roughly 50 by the time Iris is born. By 1916 he would have been roughly 80. But all this is being generous as the impression given to the reader, when he's introduced to us in Italy, seems to me, about 35. The same maths makes him maybe 90? I'm not saying someone couldn't live a long and productive life but there's no consistency for this character.

Rawblood would do well with a much stronger editor. It would also do well with the book being stroyboarded so the author could see where the narrative is going. This would also clean up the mess at the end where the author has tried to be clever and tie up lose ends that were never in the plot to start with. The whole book is to busy but at the same time empty. All of this means I really don’t understand the 4 and 5 star ratings.

Sometimes I just want to smack myself across the face for not reading a certain book earlier. Last week was another one of those occasions as I found myself falling in love with Catriona Ward's Rawblood. This particular novel had been waiting for me on my Kindle SINCE 2015!! I know, this is not okay and I sincerely apologize to the literary gods. But now that I finally got around to it I can also finally tell you just how amazing I thought it was. Thanks to Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Where to begin? Some novels are easy to review. They stick to a single genre, have a relatively straightforward plot and don't veer too far from the expected. This doesn't mean they aren't great books, they are frequently brilliant, but they make my job a lot easier. And then there are novels like Rawblood which make it both difficult and challenging. Once I finished it I tried to tell my housemate about it but I didn't even know what to lead with. Rawblood is many things. It's a historical fiction novel and it's Gothic horror story. It's about a girl but it's also about a family. It's full of evil and guilt, but filled with love. Ward set herself up for a major challenge with this story but somehow manages to bring all these different themes together into one stunning narrative. It is not often that a novel can make you feel such a variety of different emotions, but with each different theme Ward interweaves into her tale, I found myself affected in a different way. I found myself yearning for love, burning with a desire for knowledge, horrified by the cruelty of people, filled with fear at ancient evil, and more.

At the heart of Rawblood is Iris and her relationship with her family mansion, the eponymous Rawblood. Living in the early 20th century, she lives a reclusive and sheltered existence with her father, believing she suffers from a congenital disease. However, something much more sinister is at work in Rawblood. Ward tells the story of Iris' family in a non-chronological order, hopping back and forth to different family members and different times. There is a 19th century doctor fascinated with the qualities of blood, a quiet heiress who knows she is always on the verge of death, a soldier witnessing the horrors of World War I, a young woman with powers close to the supernatural... there are so many characters whose lives come together to form the story of Rawblood, both the mansion and the novel. Each character is fascinating and allows Ward to explore different moments in time. She can address war, gender, medicine, love, class, all the topics that make for great stories. A lesser author would have eventually lost the thread of their own novel, but Ward masterfully binds all these characters together and makes their stories crucial to that of Iris. You will have to pay attention to follow all the different things Ward throws at you, but she rewards that attention and dedication at every turn.

At the end of Rawblood I sat in silence for a good hour, thinking. The curse of Rawblood is she, a strange malevolent woman who has haunted the bloodlines coming together in Iris for generations. The moment the Villarcas love, death finds them. Rawblood could have been a straightforward horror story that terrifies but doesn't chill you down to the bone. It does, however, chill you. I found myself thinking a lot about humanity and love after finishing this novel. What is it about love that also brings out the worst in us? We do terrible things in the name of love and especially when we are disappointed in love. Family is the perfect vehicle through which to explore this and Ward consistently manages to make (almost) everyone's actions seem understandable. At the end, Rawblood had me in tears with the emotions Ward was bringing to the table. This mix of love and hate, life and death, is incredibly potent and allows Rawblood to pack an incredible punch.

It's not very difficult to blow me away with amazing writing, but I always find myself extra stunned when I realise a novel is a debut novel. Rawblood is Catriona Ward's first novel, but her writing is incredibly confident and commands attention. She captures the voices of each of her characters, whether it's 11-year old Iris or a WWI soldier. Ward also manages to capture the way an inner voice speaks. Now, stay with me here for a second. There is a way in which your thoughts work, how your mind jumps around, how it speaks to you in phrases rather than complete sentences. Ward captures that, the fractured nature of the mind, not just in the fractured way she tells her story but also in how she relates her characters' stories to us. I can't entirely explain it, but once I got used to it I found it utterly breathtaking. As said above, I kept fearing she would lose the plot, that the novel would derail somehow, and yet it never did. There are so many twists and turns, moments that make you go 'No way!', and yet it all clicks into place perfectly. I can't wait to read Rawblood again because I know I'll get something different and new from how it all comes together.

Yup, I love Rawblood! From the first chapter, Ward completely captivated me and even when I wasn't reading I was thinking about her novel. Rawblood was an emotional roller coaster, giving you everything and then making you sit there while it all gets taken away again. Rawblood is much more than a horror story and I can't recommend it enough!