A review by e_read_books
Gorse by Sam K. Horton

2.5

Thank you to Netgalley and Solaris for providing me with an ARC.

I struggled through this one. I initially DNFed at around 20% for what I chalked up to bad timing. But I returned a couple of weeks after and read again from the start. That initial 20% was maybe the best part for me and I should have probably stopped there. The set up of the killings and the atmosphere of an isolated parish where people go to Sunday service but also still leave offerings for the piskeys etc. was really good. 

The writing style is pretty slow and very descriptive. There were some great quotes in the beginning, but over time it just got more and more grating and unfortunately I stopped caring.

The best stones have gone, taken to form the cornerstones of farmhouses, the foundation of a church. Old pagan rocks holding the new world on their shoulders.

He is no fool, the Reverend. He knows how things stand. The old ways are a fraying cloth, stretched tight across the landscape. Mended here and there by those that care. Held tightly by its weavers. It will, eventually, wear right through. Just tattered scraps of fabric, catching on the gorse.

I really liked the idea of the Keeper, the "person chosen to watch the line, the fragile one that separates us from Them, one from the other." And Pel and Nancy's relationship was the strongest thing about the story, the conflict of Pel holding Nancy back in her magical studies but also the clear love they have for each other as father and daughter, even unacknowledged. But I think I was hoping for more from the clash between the Christian and the belief in the Undermoore. 

Also, if you aren't sick of seeing the word "gorse" by the end of this relatively short book, then idk, cos I was.