Pine

''With all the lights on, there is still a darkness in the house.''

In a small community in the haunting Scottish Highlands, the strange disappearance of a mother has cast a shadow over the lives of the residents. Lauren, a 10-year-old girl, lives with her father and tries to find the links that may lead to the resolution of her mother's enigma and the healing of her family's wounds. Strange incidents, insecurity and bullying form a terrible labyrinth for the young girl.

This novel is really something else. The plot is tightly woven and touches on a plethora of themes. There are elements of Mystery, Horror, Folklore, Literary Fiction but at its heart lies a very real, very deep story of a family that has lost its way and joy and a show more community that is divided between pity and cruelty. Toon focuses on the father-daughter relationship, a very particular, very demanding process, and the teenage inclination to question and search. Where would the world be without it? The writer presents the harsh reality of bullying coming from the awful so-called ''popular'' students (more like monsters, if you ask me....) with stark clarity and honesty without being over the top or melodramatic. Lauren and Niall are two people looking for an anchor, hiding secrets that darken their world.

Apart from the realistic elements of the plot, Toon pays a moving homage to the vast Scottish tradition and the legendary British Horror genre. The Scottish Highlands is a land of mystery and tremendous energy. Lauren has to put up with people who call her mother a ''witch'' and live in what seems to be a cursed house. Selkies, kelpies and other mythical creatures of the Scottish tradition are interwoven with features of ancient and modern witchcraft and the story is taken on a whole new level through the focus on folk music, ballads, and lullabies that make the reading experience so much special. You will discover real gems here.

The temperature drops suddenly, a flowery perfume fills the air in an empty house, strange shadows and female figures are seen, women appear in the nightly streets. Houses are plagued by unnatural phenomena and a strange darkness hovers over the community. Windows turn black out of the blue and candles flicker. There are quite a few deliciously scary parts and the haunting atmosphere of Scotland is at its best in this beautiful novel. And on a side note, I realized -once more- that I've always found nurseries really, really unsettling.

Just read this short paragraph:

''The clouds shift and a bright day comes through the kitchen window, catching dust motes and things that need to be replaced or fixed, After an hour's work, the light fades and the house feels emptier. He watches the dark oven and the bulb that has been dead for years behind the murky glass door.''

I love unsettling stories and this novel is beautifully unsettling. Full of memorable and realistic characters, written in excellent, haunting and moving prose, it has the readers checking over their shoulders and wary to expect the unexpected because you are certain that danger is close yet its source is inscrutable.

This novel is an autumnal twilight. A silent wintry night, lit only by the flickering lights of the windows. It is a late summer evening. A mystery lurking at the side of the road...

''The water stretches out in the twilight mist to the large slopes of hills like the resting bodies of giants under a huge sky. There is a tiny house with a red roof on the other side of the firth, evaporating into the falling dark, on a clear day he can usually see white specks of sheep. In the grainy night air he looks carefully for flat stones along the smooth curve of the shore. Once he has found a few he skims them across the black water. The ripples go one two for each stone. One day in summer he skimmed a stone and it touched the water six times before sinking. He tries again. One two. He is tired. Night is young; the moon is bright.''

Many thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

I chose this book for two reasons: 1) that lovely cover; and 2) the fact it's set in the Highlands.

I've stayed in some of the villages surrounded by the pinewoods and I love how quiet and isolated they can feel. The descriptions of the landscape and atmosphere, along with the wildlife, were well written and really put you there.

Unfortunately, I didn't really now what to think of this story, whether I felt like I needed more information or whether I needed less. Maybe as a novella it would have worked better, as there were a lot of events and conversations that had no bearing on the story. There was also a bit of imbalance between necessary and irrelevant information: for example, I don't know the reason for the stone circles or who the show more guy in the basement was, but I know how to prepare a rabbit for the pot.

There was quite a large cast of characters. I really liked the relationship between Lauren and her father, and I really felt for them both. I didn't connect to any of the other characters - they seemed all quite similar and I forgot who some of them were. These were for the most part secondary characters, so this didn't matter a whole lot, but there were a lot of names to remember.

The blurb for this book promised me a gothic thriller / mystery, and it isn't really what I got. It wasn't really very thrilling: the slow pace didn't really change throughout the book. I felt that too many themes were thrown at the book in order to make it a mystery: witchcraft, tarot, spells, stone circles, ghosts - it was all a bit too much. I don't know what prompted the start of all these events in the first place, or as I've said, the reason for the stone circles. Every time something paranormal happened in the story none of the characters seemed to react the way you would expect. Lauren sees a strange woman outside? Never mind. A ring of stones around something? Not to worry. I thought that was strange. And the mystery was explained at the end, almost as an afterthought, and I didn't find it satisfactory. There were no hints in the book at all, that I picked up on, leading us to this conclusion.

As I read the book, it seemed as though it was based in around the 70s / 80s. The way everyone lived in dark cold houses, someone stoking a boiler ... when someone mentioned a smartphone, it was a bit jarring. I felt that the author forgot what time period the novel was set in for much of the time.

I just don't think this book worked for me. I'd probably pick another book by this author though, as I quite like the way she writes. show less

Francine Toon’s eerie and unsettling debut novel Pine is set in a small and remote Highland town, where the nearest supermarket is 23 miles away, and the planned opening of an Aldi has been a topic for discussion for months. It is a community where everybody knows everybody else. So, it’s quite ironic that there’s a mystery at the heart of this story. Just under ten years before the events described in the novel, a young woman named Christine disappeared without a trace. Her partner Niall and their baby Lauren are still struggling to come to terms with this. The villagers gossip about Niall’s possible involvement in this disappearance, their suspicions fuelled by his alcohol problem and evident anger management issues. Lauren, show more who doesn’t remember her mother, is bullied at school, branded as the daughter of a “witch”. Christine might well have recognised herself as one – before her disappearance, she was into alternative remedies, crystal healing and fortune telling. In secret, Lauren is teaching herself spells and tarot reading from one of her mother’s books - her way of coping with a harsh and dangerous world.

The novel opens on a Halloween night. On their way home in their truck after an evening out “guising”, Lauren and her father come across a strange, white-gowned woman stumbling onto the road. They take her home with them, but the following morning she’s gone, and Lauren notices that Niall seems to have no recollection of the event. Other ghostly and unexplained events take place. Could they be harbingers of an impending tragedy? The disappearance of teenager Ann-Marie unearths memories of a mystery which has never gone away and Lauren – and the whole village – fear the worst.

Francine Toon was raised in the Highlands, and she ably uses a setting familiar to her to create a dark, uncanny atmosphere. The novel’s title refers both to Christine’s name for her daughter (Oren, the Gaelic word for “pine”) and to the forest which surrounds the village. As in traditional fairy tales, the “trees, coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men” evoke dread but also a sense of something timeless and otherworldly. This idea is also visually conveyed in the brilliant, minimalist cover.

The references to folklore, the Highland setting and the supernatural elements reminded me of another debut novel which I had greatly enjoyed – Kerry Andrew’s Swansong. However, there are also some clear differences between the approach of the two authors. Whereas Andrew’s story is steeped in folklore, Toon’s is darker, its Wiccan elements pushing it more towards horror. It also owes much to the contemporary thriller, which has turned the “missing person” trope into a veritable sub-genre.

The result is a gripping, genre-bending book which provides plenty of thrills, supernatural and otherwise. Indeed, in the excitement of the story it’s easy to miss its subtle, realist aspects – particularly the challenges of living in a small, remote community especially if you are a young teenager raring to see the world. This novel should also be read for this.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2019/10/pine-by-francine-toon.html show less

Francine Toon’s eerie and unsettling debut novel Pine is set in a small and remote Highland town, where the nearest supermarket is 23 miles away, and the planned opening of an Aldi has been a topic for discussion for months. It is a community where everybody knows everybody else. So, it’s quite ironic that there’s a mystery at the heart of this story. Just under ten years before the events described in the novel, a young woman named Christine disappeared without a trace. Her partner Niall and their baby Lauren are still struggling to come to terms with this. The villagers gossip about Niall’s possible involvement in this disappearance, their suspicions fuelled by his alcohol problem and evident anger management issues. Lauren, show more who doesn’t remember her mother, is bullied at school, branded as the daughter of a “witch”. Christine might well have recognised herself as one – before her disappearance, she was into alternative remedies, crystal healing and fortune telling. In secret, Lauren is teaching herself spells and tarot reading from one of her mother’s books - her way of coping with a harsh and dangerous world.

The novel opens on a Halloween night. On their way home in their truck after an evening out “guising”, Lauren and her father come across a strange, white-gowned woman stumbling onto the road. They take her home with them, but the following morning she’s gone, and Lauren notices that Niall seems to have no recollection of the event. Other ghostly and unexplained events take place. Could they be harbingers of an impending tragedy? The disappearance of teenager Ann-Marie unearths memories of a mystery which has never gone away and Lauren – and the whole village – fear the worst.

Francine Toon was raised in the Highlands, and she ably uses a setting familiar to her to create a dark, uncanny atmosphere. The novel’s title refers both to Christine’s name for her daughter (Oren, the Gaelic word for “pine”) and to the forest which surrounds the village. As in traditional fairy tales, the “trees, coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men” evoke dread but also a sense of something timeless and otherworldly. This idea is also visually conveyed in the brilliant, minimalist cover.

The references to folklore, the Highland setting and the supernatural elements reminded me of another debut novel which I had greatly enjoyed – Kerry Andrew’s Swansong. However, there are also some clear differences between the approach of the two authors. Whereas Andrew’s story is steeped in folklore, Toon’s is darker, its Wiccan elements pushing it more towards horror. It also owes much to the contemporary thriller, which has turned the “missing person” trope into a veritable sub-genre.

The result is a gripping, genre-bending book which provides plenty of thrills, supernatural and otherwise. Indeed, in the excitement of the story it’s easy to miss its subtle, realist aspects – particularly the challenges of living in a small, remote community especially if you are a young teenager raring to see the world. This novel should also be read for this.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2019/10/pine-by-francine-toon.html show less

Lauren lives with her father, Niall, in the Scottish Highlands. Ten years previously her mother, Christine, mysteriously disappeared causing tongues to wag with rumours of witchcraft. In the present day a ghostly woman is seen and then a teenager goes missing. Are these connections to the past?

This is a slow burner of a story so don’t expect a fast paced rollercoaster! It’s beautifully written and vividly and atmospherically depicted. There is more than a hint of the supernatural - it’s otherworldly and eerie. It’s ultimately a tale about the effects of grief and how they resonate within a small community. Despite the fact that I found the ending a little odd and maybe a tad rushed, I very much enjoyed it. It had me eagerly show more turning pages.

If you love a dark and brooding story with a mystical and ethereal thread running through it, this one is for you. show less

Pine has strong prose and an excellent opening, particularly the guising scenes with Lauren and Billy, which suggested a darker folkloric horror novel. However, after that initial hook, the story became too emotionally distant for me. The question of whether Lauren was seeing ghosts, hallucinating, or being lied to never evolved into a compelling enough emotional mystery for me to stay invested, so I ultimately DNF’d the book at 33%.

For about three-quarters of this novel, it contended with what I consider one of the greatest novels written, [b:The Testament of Gideon Mack|850256|The Testament of Gideon Mack|James Robertson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347966719l/850256._SY75_.jpg|835768]. I was enthralled, jumpy, and altogether creeped out. The book is beautifully written without getting bogged down with "literary" language; you can see the poetry that the author writes in the recreation of the northern Highlands. The central characters are brilliantly realized, the main character especially, and the connection between her and the title of the novel is such a delight when it is revealed.

This is a book of grief, primarily, show more that toys with how grief touches everything in a person's life, including their perception of reality. My only complaint, and what kept it from being equal to Gideon Mack, is the resolution/exposition via dialog at the end. I think it belied the author's skill and could have been more skillfully revealed. A minor fault, but one that nevertheless made me what about what could have been with an otherwise brilliant, haunting novel. show less