Gorse by Sam K Horton

 

Around the World in 80,000 Pages - Book 15

Gorse by Sam K Horton

You can read about my Around the World in 80,000 Pages challenge here.

Miles travelled: 802
Pages read: 6,049

Disclaimer: I'm rather behind on my reviews, so they will be super brief until I get caught up again.

We travel a mere twelve miles for our fifteenth book, to Bodmin Moor. 

Gorse is billed as a folk horror/fantasy/historical fiction. The premise is that the 'otherworld' of Cornish myth is real, and the relationship between it and our world is mediated by a bloke called the Keeper. But then things start to go wrong, and everything is off-kilter, with the villagers being killed in mysterious ways.

For me, the book just didn't work. Horton somehow managed to simultaneously have not enough detail, and too much. The whole point of horror is that the monsters are vague and shadowy. That is what makes them scary, or at the very least eerie. But Gorse gives clear, almost anatomical descriptions of the denizens of the otherworld right from the get go - robbing them of any mystique and rendering the story as unsettling as marmalade on toast. But at the same time, the fae characters have no personality. Horton gives no suggestion, either of their similarities or differences to humanity in terms of character. The resultant tale is mundane and bland and simply goes through the motions.

73½/140 - just scraping ★★★☆☆. The associated flag is the Cornish Saint Piran's cross (which I can't my photo for) and the music is Cornwall by OMNIA.