Kangchengjunga, the second highest mountain in the Himalaya after Everest and one of the most dangerous to climb, first climbed by a British expedition in 1955.
Previous expeditions, notably a British Expedition in 1907 had failed, with only two of the 7 men returning and only four men buried. Mystery surrounds the fifth man.
Thin Air is the story of a British expedition's 1935 attempt to scale the mountain.
Stephen, a doctor and brother of expedition leader Ki ts, is co-opted to join the expedition at the last minute as replacement for their medic. Before embarking Stephen meets one of the survivors of the 1907 expedition, a man who still bears the scars and has never spoken of the tragic events on the mountain. The mystery of the fifth is the pivot by which the whole novel revolves. Part ghost story, part thriller, Stephen must grapple with the effects of altitude sickness and ghostly visions of a haunted figure.
Wonderfully written and researched the novel is atmospheric and chilling in its descriptions. It builds slowly to a revealing climatic ending. A very satisfying read.

This is a very enjoyable and taut spine chiller, very much in the vein of Dark Matter (which is brilliantly scary), but about a doomed mountain ascent. Don't read this alone in the dark!

I have never been mountaineering but if I had I imagine a lot of the feelings and emotions I had when reading this book would be realistic. This is one eerie and very very chilling read. I was hooked and although I actually felt quite sick at times with the insights into altitude sickness and the danger of avalanches, I did every step they did, grappled with every challenge they did and felt every slice of icy air they did - it was that evocative and real.

The language and way the author showcased this amazing mountain was exquisite - from the ‘ rank disorder of the forests’ to the feeling that the entire landscape is watching you, I loved the sense of place and how I soaked up each and every feeling this gave me.

The thrill for me was the way in which the two expeditions seemed to merge - the previous was almost a black and white photo superimposed on the second and the rivalries between the men, the altitude sickness and the risk of danger very much real. I felt chilled and excited to the point of sickness as I read. I swear I had to look up to get my bearings and realise I was not on the mountain itself.

The way Stephen Pearce narrated the sequence of events, and his rivalry with brother Kits brought another fascinating thread to the whole affair. This was a battle of all sides - brothers, past rivalries, the mountain and its spirits an the demons we have within.

There was only one niggle I had with it and it was the way in which the ending contained in the diaries was tied up. Still it didn’t spoil one bit the journey I had been on on the way there. As the best travellers will tell you, it’s not just about the final destination but the journey before it. This was the most supernatural and eerily good ghost story /adventure story I have read in a long while. You will never forget your journey up this mountain of fine fiction.

A mountain trek so evocative and challenging that My legs ached by the end and I could feel the icy wind on my face. This mountain is the home of spiritual journeys and ghostly spirits which haunt. A chilling read that I am still shivering from now.

The sense of location and supernatural setting is one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Every step of the way,I was enthralled and scared by what would come next. So cleverly and intrinsically evoked, I feel I was the sixth member of the trek with the same fear of the unknown and the same chills up my spine.

A mountain trek in the shadows of so many who have gone before. Mountaineers killed and lost to the elements, the ghosts of the past. Now a group of five men try it themselves but personal demons will accompany them up the mountain but not all will come down.

Michelle Paver's Dark Matter is one of my favourite ghost stories, but I admit, when I heard about Thin Air, I had doubts that she could recreate the same magic. The story just sounded too similar - Dark Matter was about a group of five men embarking on an Arctic expedition in the 1930s; Thin Air is about a group of five men embarking on a mountain-climbing expedition in the 1930s - and I worried that the new story would effectively be a retread of the old one. Inevitably, there are similarities between the two, but Thin Air is so full of atmosphere, so absorbing, that it develops its own character very quickly.

The mountain at the centre of this story is Kangchenjunga; the tale is narrated by the team's doctor, Stephen, writing in his journal. His altogether more successful and glamorous brother, Kits, is the group's fearless leader. They're following in the footsteps of an expedition that went notoriously awry, and from the beginning, their mission is under something of a dark cloud after they're warned off Kangchenjunga by one of the only men to have survived that previous attempt. It's not long before strange events convince at least one of the group that they're not quite as isolated (or as safe) as they think. There is a particular scene that makes a rucksack scarier than you could ever imagine; like Dark Matter, Thin Air plays with themes of isolation and paranoia, and how these feelings can magnify each other.

At a time of high anxiety, reading this (earlier than I intended; it's out in October) was a sort of treat to myself, and it worked perfectly, the sinister atmosphere completely engulfing all other worries. Thin Air is a proper ghost story, the good old-fashioned type, to be read under a blanket with a candle flickering, and every detail of its creepy, compelling tale is note-perfect - the historical detail, the slow build-up, the delicious dread of the spooky scenes. It is scary, but scary in the way the way of things you actively seek out to scare you when you're young; indeed, probably a little more so than Dark Matter, this feels like a book that could be enjoyed by readers of all ages (which makes sense given Paver's extensive back catalogue of children's fiction). I'm so glad Paver has written another ghost story, and I hope it won't be the last.

I was absolutely gripped by this ghost story. It has an amazing creepy, wintery atmosphere and the historical detail is perfect. This will be a great read for winter.

'Thin Air' is a haunting tale of human endurance, reminiscent of Paver's earlier ghost story, 'Dark Matter'. Told by Stephen, a young doctor living in the shadow of his older, richer brother Kits, 'Thin Air' follows the parallel stories of two mountain climbing expeditions, twenty nine years apart. In 1906, the Lyell expedition to the summit of Kangchenjunga in the Himalayas ended in tragedy. In 1935, Stephen, Kits and two fellow climbers attempt to recreate the climb. But, thousands of feet up the mountain, trapped in the remote ice and snow, they find they are not alone.
Sinister and atmospheric, 'Thin Air' is a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat read, which will send shivers down your spine long after you close the book.

One of the best books I have read for a while. I could not put this one down - gripping read from start to finish!

An eerie, creepy tale of a malignant haunting in the Himalayas.

Paver shows herself to be, again, in the tradition of MR James with this suggestive rather than full-on tale. The atmosphere of a small 1930s climbing expedition with its class consciousness ("he's not one of us") and casual racism is well conveyed and gives an intelligent background to the story.

The icy glare of high altitudes is an interesting setting for a haunting and there's a possibility that what we're witnessing is the instability of a mind tainted by 'mountain sickness'.

Overall, a good, if similar, companion-piece to Paver's Dark Matter.

To be posted on Amazon and Goodreads

I don’t know when or why this happened, but I have become a little obsessed with books like Thin Air – ones that detail a difficult, physical, journey across some kind of desolate landscape such as mountain climbing, across the Arctic, alone at the bottom of the sea or on Mars. A few examples of others I put in this category that I’ve loved are:
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton (reviewed here)
The Deep by Nick Cutter (reviewed here)
The Martian by Andy Weir (reviewed here)
Thin Air follows a team of mountaineers in 1935 attempting to scale the heights of Kangchenjunga, a mountain that famously claimed the lives of five men in the Lyell expedition in 1907 and by 1935 had never yet been defeated. Our main character is Stephen Pearce who has been brought on the expedition as the medic, with his brother Kits, a few other men and a large pack of sherpas to assist them. The brothers are in constant competition and have climbed together since their youth, so alongside the various different sides of the story showing the technical side of climbing, the terrifying and exhilarating experiences, and the fear and creepiness, you also get the somewhat fraught relationship between the brothers.
There’s just something about the bleakness, the sheer depth of the isolation and the unfamiliarity of this terrain to me that I love in this book. Put that alongside the fact that it’s a mix of psychological thriller and ghost story, and you’ve got a winner.
I’m planning to read Paver’s Dark Matter in future now which is an Arctic expedition – right up my street at the moment!

A truly chilling, in more than one sense of the word, ghost story. The narrative flows with ease and shivers sweep you to the end. Disputes between brother mountaineers: will they reach the summit of Kangchenjunga?

Wonderful old-fashioned feel to this, very much like The Woman in Black: the set-up of a story within a story; the public school characters and class (and racial) prejudices. And, of course, a wonderfully atmospheric, tense piece of writing, with the protagonist repeatedly refusing to believe in anything supernatural, yet caught up in superstition and fear anyway. A joy to read!

I wrote the following review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1627091476?book_show_action=false

I do love a good ghost story. And this? This was a VERY good one. Horror can be a pretty tricky genre to balance, especially when involving the paranormal. As a reader, I can't stand too much of a build-up with very little climax, but I also don't want supernatural shenanigans flung in my face left, right and centre. Atmosphere and happenings need to be well-timed and intertwined successfully in order to really give me the creeps, and Paver really pulled it off. I loved Paver's choice of unusual setting: a mountain climb, or more specifically, Kangchenjunga. It's jagged, overwhelming height mixed with the superstitions of the local tribes and the demands on the human body made by such cold temperatures and high altitude really aided in creating a uniquely chilling tone to the story. What's real, and what is merely hallucination?

What really interested me about this book was that there was more to it than the ghost story. The character relationships were interesting (including hinted LGBT feelings) and I felt educated when I came out of it because Paver knew her setting and time period so well! Everything from the foods they ate to the way they spoke slotted together nicely and made for a well thought out tale. The mystery behind the ghost was just as curious to read upon and finally finding out all of the facts was fantastic, and also made for the beginning of what proved to be a spectacular conclusion to the story. I got through this book in less than twenty four hours, it was THAT good.

A thrilling, spooky read that really held my interest from beginning to end and was just what I needed to get into right now. I felt a little uncomfortable with the fairly casual racism of the time and didn't attach myself too much to the characters due to their arrogant and childish personalities. In this case that worked to my advantage, as I find I like scary stories better when I'm not too terrified for the lives of the characters I'm reading from. I've seen some people review this book as being too similar to Paver's 'Dark Matter' but as I haven't read that book, I found it nothing short of original and refreshing.