A fun and involving horror novel for teens in which a girl goes back to the town in which her dad - a famous film director - shot his most notorious work. It's atmospheric and gripping, and I think it will work fantastically for its target audience.

Many thanks to The Write Reads and Penguin for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Harrow Lake is a dark, creepy book where one town’s local boogeyman becomes a little too real for a New York girl who visits there. But sometimes boogeymen exist for a reason.

This one was really hard for me to rate, especially, because I don’t do half ratings, but this felt a lot like a half to me. Not a three, but not quite a four. And what do you do with that? Aside from drink. Drinking is always an option. Ultimately, I went with three stars, but what even are stars, really? Other than fireflies stuck in the big bluish-black thing, of course.

My Thoughts:

- Since we’re all here for the spooky, let’s talk about that first. I’d say this is more psychological thriller than horror, but whatever you want to classify it, it’s downright creepy, and I loved it. I read a lot of early reviews for this blog tour (benefits of going almost last), and everyone was talking about the creep factor. 20% in I was like pfffft, what wussies everyone is. This isn’t that bad. By 35%, I had all the lights in my house on, and by 50%, I had forsaken sleep, because I live in a rural place and there’s tapping everywhere and OMG I DIDN’T HANG ANYTHING ON THE BONE TREE, EITHER, AND WHAT IF THAT’S MISTER JITTERS AT THE WINDOW?

- Ellis does a fabulous job of playing with the small-town setting and feeding into the local lore that every small town has. I, too, came from a small town. Of course we had our local legends, because what else are all these people going to do once they’re tired of seeing the same faces every day for the rest of their lives? Invent new faces! And why not make them scary? More fun that way. For Harrow Lake, the local legend is Mister Jitters, and there’s plenty of superstition surrounding him, which weaves this pervasively eerie atmosphere, with a subtle hint of dread. It was fine until it wasn’t, basically. When things start to go downhill, they really go downhill. I enjoyed the quaint town as a setting, and it really helped ramp up the creep factor.

- More than just the setting or monsters lurking in the dark yearning to eat your bones, one of the creepiest things about this book is the relationship between Lola and her father, Nolan. In fact, there’s a theme here of fathers and daughters and their relationships that I really don’t want to discuss. Suffice it to say that the first red flag is that Lola calls her father Nolan and thinks nothing of it. But ohoho, that’s mild. It gets so much worse from there. While it’s clear to the reader almost immediately, Lola has to discover her own independence bit by bit, which was one of my favorite parts of the book. The transformation in her ended up being a really powerful one for me, and it’s one of the things I particularly enjoyed about this book.

- There’s the requisite teen romance in this book, and whether that’s a good thing or bad thing depends on what you’re after, I suppose. For me, it was unnecessary. It didn’t add anything to the story, and it didn’t seem to go anywhere. It’s one of those points that ended up dropped in the ending and had no clear wrap-up, which was frustrating for me. This relationship would’ve been stronger (and less frustrating about not being “wrapped up”) if it were just a friendship. On the other hand, for a teenager who’s just earning her freedom and getting out from the oppressive thumb of her father? A light fling is realistic. Probable, even. Despite the fact that nothing actually happens. So this could really go either way. For the target audience, as teenagers, at least having feelings of attraction and such would be totally relatable, even if nothing happens, and maybe, in one aspect, that’s actually a fresh approach to the YA romance front, where not every romance needs to blossom into a lifelong love affair. Maybe a little teen flirting and banter suffices.

Sticking Points:

- Lola has an obsession with doing the Optimal thing (capitalized like that), and it became extremely repetitive. I was not a fan of this. First, it didn’t end up being rooted in something solid enough for me. Not a quote from her father or something ingrained in her from her childhood. I think it would’ve gone over better for me, personally, if there had been a more solid grounding. Even so, the word itself paired with how often it was used just felt super clunky to me.

- I loved the ending, but it still felt like there were strings blowing in the wind from the middle section of the book. Not everything was as tied up as I’d have hoped, and there’s a lot of extrapolation and guesswork a reader has to do. I loved the conclusion of Lola’s arc, but then I thought back to the rest of the novel and was like … wait … what about this? This ending doesn’t explain X, Y, and Z that happened. Whether this bothers you or not depends on the sort of reader you are. I love my thriller tied up with a neat, little bow, and it didn’t quite explain away everything.

- As far as good mental health rep, this book hasn’t got it, so if that’s a potential trigger for you, give this a pass. I’m not a huge fan of the “mental illness as a plot point” trope in thriller, and this isn’t necessarily that … but just barely. Harrow Lake manages to just skirt blaming mental illness for things, though it is clear throughout the book that Lola has some mental health problems. On the one hand, they make perfect sense to the plot, and they’re pretty realistic, given everything that happens. The biggest problem for me was just that they weren’t addressed in any way, so like above, the idea that she had these problems is kind of left blowing in the wind, with no conclusion.

I’m a bit older than YA age but this didn’t stop my enjoyment of Harrow Lake. Lola Nox is the daughter of horror filmmaker Nolan Nox who disappears at the beginning of the book. Ellis then takes us back a year to Harrow Lake where Lola’s father’s most famous film is set. What follows is a trip through your worse nightmares. There are secrets, landslides and the very creepy Mr Jitters. The town itself is a fabulously monstrous character and was probably my favourite if I’m honest. Lola was a little two-dimensional but that didn’t stop me racing through this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK Children’s for my ARC

First of all, look at that cover. Is that not the creepiest thing to look at late at night?? I'm glad I read this on my Kindle to be honest. I've been trying to read more horror books lately, and so when I saw that Harrow Lake was up on NetGalley I swept it up.

I have to say, the atmosphere of this book is on point. It's suuuuuper creepy for the first two thirds when you have no idea what's going on. Lola, the main character, goes to stay in a small town with a grandmother that she barely knows, and is surrounded by rumours of her vanished mother. It's CREEPY. There are creepy puppets and shadows and noises. I had to stop reading it late into the night because some parts were giving me chills. Kat Ellis pulled the atmosphere off perfectly.

As for the plot, I would say it's pretty standard for a YA horror. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, because I definitely did, but it's not something that I will rave about and I wouldn't say that the twist(s) were anything spectacular. I was't necessarily reading this horror book for the twists though, because what I really wanted was to be creeped out and on the edge of my seat because of FEAR.

I did feel a bit disconnected from Lola, especially because she seemed to hate everyone that she came into contact with. While this made sense for her character (and be patient if you don't necessarily get it in the beginning) it made it quite hard for me to fall in love with the story and her journey.

I think if you're into classic horror movies then you'll really enjoy Harrow Lake for the chilling atmosphere and the sleepless nights!

If I'd had the chance I would have read this book in one sitting. The plot moves at the right speed and the characters are relatable. I loved all the nods to other horror stories and films such as The Yellow Wallpaper that made discovering each Easter Egg very enjoyable.

I felt that the doll part of the plot was unnecessary, otherwise all the other elements were suitably creepy.

The plot point about coercive control was subtle and I hope this arms readers against future harm.

Overall an enjoyable read and I'm going to read through the author's back catalogue.

enjoying this book. Very interesting plot. The characters take a while to get used to but when you do you will find this one a real page Turner.

Enjoyed this book and was surprised by the twist near the end of the book. A book full of suspense and made me want to get to the end to see what became of everyone. Felt I knew Lola quite well by the end of the book.

But...did she get together with Carter? Did carters mum get found? Where did Lola go? A few too many unanswered questions. But overall a good read

Kat Ellis you have taken me on a delightful, creepy and disturbing journey! Lola is not a character I want to be; her mum walked out when she was little and her dad is distant, neglectful and just too famous and busy to be bothered and initially she seems quite bland. Forced to stay with her grandmother for a while, you would hope that she would finally have an adult to take an interest in her and give her some love and support, but no. However, once Lola arrives at the tiny 1920s town of Hallow Lake, there are some moments of kindness in store for her, but there are layers and layers of uncomfortable secrets and mysteries to uncover as we read on.
I love the creepy urban myth of Mister Jitters that the town residents delight in as well as the back story of Lola's parents meeting in the town when her director dad casts her mom as his replacement leading lady... queue sinking graveyards, an abandoned film set, a creepy amusement park and two lifetimes of family nastiness. Bravo, I loved this.

I was thrilled to get a chance to read this after seeing one of the slickest marketing campaigns for a YA book on social media. And, as a horror film fan, I was really looking forward to it.
It’s a great book. Intelligent, atmospheric and genuinely unnerving in places. As much as I loved the onslaught of horror movie tropes and conceits, I was really pleased that the author took the book and the characters in a much more satisfying direction.

I read this as part of a blog tour.

I was so excited to read this and I was not disappointed. Creepy, compelling and sinister; it draws you in like a moth to a flame, you just can't resist following Lola into the woods and caves of 1920s throwback Harrow Lake.

I grew up in the London suburb of Harrow and we had our fair share of folklore and stories, but nothing as spine tingling as Mr Jitters, cave ins and murder.

Although this is YA, I think plenty of adult readers will enjoy it too, Lola makes for a engaging and very naive protagonist and the residents of Harrow Lake are suitably odd for the setting.

Exactly the spooky, atmospheric read I was looking for. Lola is self obsessed and narcissistic and yet still a relatable main character you can't help rooting for. The daughter of a famous film director, she is sent to Harrow Lake to live with her grandmother. The area is the setting of her fathers most famous film and soon the horror world of her father's imagination seems to be coming to life around her. Really enjoyed this fast paced and eerie read.

Harrow Lake centres around Lola, the daughter of a famous film director. After Lola finds her father stabbed almost to death, she is sent to Harrow Lake to live with her estranged grandmother. Harrow Lake is the place where her father's most famous film is set, and also home to the legend of the creepy Mister Jitters. As Lola explores the town that made her parents famous, she begins to unravel the mystery of her mothers disappearance.

I really dug the themes in this novel, there was an eeriness reminiscent of the cult films of the 80s. The character development is good and there is a steady discovery of twists and turns which will keep you interested in what is happening.

The book can be somewhat vague in places, which reflects Lola's confusion as she narrates the story.

Harrow Lake has a great feel to it, doesn't drag on and will keep you guessing throughout.

Despite my advancing years, I generally get a lot out of young adult fiction but sadly "Harrow Lake" missed the spot. It was a bit too Scooby-Doo for me. I think if you're using a puff quote marketing a book to fans of Stephen King, then you'd better be sure that the content delivers. This one fell too short of the mark for me. I enjoyed the ending but vacuous Lola and her "optimal" patter (plus the nonsensical Mr Jitters ditties) did my head in. As I said, I'm not the target market and I did finish the book - I just didn't love it as I'd expected to.

I don’t usually read YA books but this one spoke to me. Lolas father is injured and she is shipped off to Harrow Lake to stay with her grandmother whom she does not know. Harrow lake is the last place anyone saw Lolas missing mother, and Lola is determined to find information about her. Mr Jitters is the legend which haunts Harrow Lake and confronts Lola at every turn, but is Mr Jitters real, or a symptom of something worse haunting Harrow Lake?

This was a good read, I wouldn’t say I couldn’t put it down but I did enjoy it. It isn’t just for YA readers.

'Harrow Lake' is one of those novels that you can't help but loving! It's 'American Psycho' meets 'The Yellow Wall Paper'!

Lola Nox is narcissistic, obsessive, spoiled and yet somehow entirely relatable. Kat Ellis throws Lola into a world of confusion and the reader, like Lola, is desperately trying to make some kind of sense of the rabbit hole she has fallen down.

Deeply disturbing plot elements force Lola is confront her inner (and outer!) demons, and as the fictional horror world created by her infamous director father seems to be coming to life around her. She is isolated and alone in Harrow Lake, and the psychological terror this brings is electrifying.

Ellis cleverly begins the novel with an interview with Nolan Nox - laying out the mysterious disappearance of one of his film crew, his wife and his only daughter before the narrative flashes back to the previous year, the constant foreboding created by the seemingly inevitable outcome guarantees you can't put the book down until you discover their fates! .

A compelling novel full of twists and turns and a superb ending!

I didn’t even realise that this was YA - it’s genuinely scary as an adult!
Lola is a 17 year old girl whose father is the director of a famous horror film. Following an accident, she ends up returning to the town where it was filmed to stay with her unwelcoming and peculiar Grandmother, right at the time of the yearly carnival celebrating the film.
It turns out that the locals have a lot of secrets and their own movie monster living in the woods....
I read a lot of horror and don’t scare easily but the story of Mr Jitters genuinely creeped me out and I slept with the light on after reading, listening for the sound of jitterbugs (which I won’t view in the same way again!)! Very immersive and descriptive writing, which I could imagine being made into a film itself!

Lola Nox has always found it difficult to live her own life. Daughter of celebrated film director Nolan Nox, she has got used to someone watching her every move and not getting completely free choice over her actions. She knows there are secrets in her family, but when we first meet her it’s evident that Lola has secrets of her own.
The opening was not immediately engaging. Lola appeared to have had some kind of falling out with her father, her behaviour indicates daddy issues and she really was not very likeable. However, when she is taken home and finds her father bleeding in his study we can’t help but feel some sympathy for her.
Suddenly Lola is sent to Harrow Lake, her mother’s hometown and the setting for her father’s seminal movie. It’s a weird place, and the strange behaviour of certain characters does little to make Lola comfortable.
Before we know it there’s a creepy movie festival taking place, weird goings on and Lola is having all manner of odd occurrences. She knows that someone in the town may hold the key to what happened to her mother, but few are willing to divulge their secrets.
During the story, as Lola becomes more and more akin to one of the characters in one of her father’s movies, we begin to piece together fragments of the stories being told. We learn about the darkness of Harrow Lake, the secrets Lola has and the events that have led her to this moment.
There’s a dark undercurrent to this, and though elements were undeveloped it was - on the whole - a creepy tale that will entrance horror fans.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication.

Review of this one courtesy of my daughter who is an actual Young Adult, and not a Curmudgeonly Old Git like me:

I really enjoyed this book. It was quite creepy in some parts but in my opinion this was good. The main character Lola is the daughter of a horror film maker Nolan Nox. Lola is sent to the town of Harrow Lake to stay with her grandmother, who she has never met; after her father is attacked. It is her mother (who left when she was 5)'s hometown and the town is also the setting of her father's horror film Nightjar, in which her mother stars as the leading role. As she explores the town and meets new people she realises not everything is as it seems.
Harrow Lake is a really enjoyable book and you have no idea what will happen next.The descriptions of the town are very good as you can picture where the characters are. The book makes you question your first impressions of the characters and story, for example, is the town really as creepy as it seems? The ending of the book was very good and unexpected. It had a lot of twists throughout the book that kept me reading. It had some good creepy moments and it keeps you on your toes. I really recommend this book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Like many people in recent months, I’ve struggled with a lockdown reading slump, unable to focus on much beyond the incessant doom scrolling on my phone. I’m happy to report though that Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis brought the slump to an end in one long frenetic chittering read. Hooked from page one, I could barely put it down, which seems all the more extraordinary given my lack lustre reading efforts of late.

This title seems to be categorised as YA but I'd recommend it for older readers too- it did not come across as specifically geared to young adults other than having a younger main character.

The story is neatly set up at both ends within the frame of an interview with famed horror film director Nolan Nox. From the very start we learn several things- firstly, that Nolan is rude and abrasive with his interviewer, that he has a long history with the town of Harrow Lake, the setting for his most famous film and lastly that his teenage daughter Lola, went missing a year ago. The narrative then jumps back a year and moves directly into first person POV of Lola, the book’s main protagonist. As a result of a strange and brutal attack on Nolan at their home, Lola is sent to stay with her maternal grandmother in mysterious Harrow Lake. Lola’s mother Lorelei is also missing- and during her stay in Harrow Lake, Lola delves into the circumstances around her disappearance and the local folklore about the gruesome Mister Jitters, a sinister figure who preys on the townspeople.

The strongest aspects of the book were, for me, the overwhelmingly oppressive sense of wrongness and unease. Everything about Lola’s world just seems a little off and her arrival at Harrow Lake simply increases the sense that something is desperately awry. As a character, Lola is pretty weird- and her quirks of behaviour and language may be off putting to some but it definitely works as far as contributing to the eerie atmosphere. As a setting Harrow Lake is conveniently remote- isolated- and full of odd characters. As an urban legend Mister Jitters leaves enough to the imagination to provide the requisite chills without being too overtly gory or bloody. If anything, the story captures how the secrets we keep in the dark become the food for the nightmare itself.

I felt the downside to the story is that as Lola’s world unravels, it all began to feel fractured and a little hard to work out what was real and what is just in Lola’s imagination. That was possibly intentional on Ellis' part but I found it jarring. At the same time the true nature of Mister Jitters was telegraphed fairly early and while there’s a bit of a clever twist at the end, I did not really feel that surprised. I liked the conclusion although it did take the book in a direction that I wasn’t entirely excited about as far as explaining what was really going on. On the whole though, this was a really great, fun, spooky- as- hell story which I very much enjoyed, possibly suited better for a dreary October afternoon than a bright summer beach read.

Thanks to Penguin for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this creepy treat. Great story and progression, doesn't outstay it's welcome and it's full of nice creepy moments that will make many people skin crawl and leave their lamps on overnight ( please don't do that ). One of the best books in it's genre for 2020.

A genuine treat and fans of Koontz, King will not be disappointed.