There is a strong feminist reading of Wakenhyrst – Maud had no intention of subjecting like her mother did – the treatment of women being a horror story all of its own. At a time when women had no voice, even as an upper class lady, Maud was destined to become a baby-making machine, just like her mother. We have our strong-willed, 16-year-old heroine – Maud.
So, we have our isolated setting – Wake’s End in the Suffolk countryside, surrounded by a fen. The story unravels so we can discover what happened, then book takes us nicely back to the 60s at the end of the story. Narrated by Edmund’s daughter Maud, who was 16 when he murdered a seemingly random man and was committed to an asylum. Wakenhyrst opens in 1966 and tantalisingly tells of a gruesome event that happened in 1912 at Wake’s End – a grand country house – and ended up with the master of the house, Edmund Stearn, in an insane asylum. Like a witch’s lair in a fairytale the ancient manor house crouches in its tangled garden. Opening sentence: (As a newspaper feature): The Mystery of Edmund Stearne by Patrick Rippon / Only in The Sunday Explorer Magazine. I was immediately transported into Michelle Paver’s story and loved every page. I love, love, love these stories – of which Wakenhyrst is one. Gothic is a genre that I can just devour.
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