The Haunting of Brynn Wilder by Wendy Webb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took me a little while to sink into this book and I think that is largely because Brynn is quite a reserved character. It is almost as if, in shielding herself from any further hurt, that she also shields herself from the reader truly knowing her.
Yet, little by little, as more of her backstory and character is revealed, the book starts to reel you in to the summer season of a town called Wharton, the place itself as much a character as any of the people in the novel.
Gothic in feel, the book is more suspenseful than truly creepy. I found it hard to understand that so many of the characters in the book were able to accept Brynn’s haunting until at the end, when I read the author’s notes and realised that some of the characters had been revisited after they featured in one of the author’s earlier novels.
My only real difficulty with the book was trying to wrap my head around the chronological timeline, which I won’t go into here because it would give too much of the plot away, but it was a concept that was clever and enticing, giving the reader plenty to think about.
This was quite an easy read, and I am pretty certain that it won’t feature in one of my most memorable books of 2021, but for an end of the working day in winter lockdown, it was a book that was entirely enjoyable.
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Deborah Siddoway 