This review will go live at the link below on 30 April:

Hi and welcome to my review of Harrow Lake! Huge thanks to Dave @ The Write Reads for the invite and to Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC!

Harrow Lake begins with an interview with Nolan Nox. His name makes him seem like a bit of a DC Comics villain but he’s actually a famous filmmaker. From that interview we learn that Nightjar was Nox’s biggest success, an iconic horror movie shot in Harrow Lake, and we also glean that Nolan’s teenage daughter Lola went to Harrow Lake the previous year… and vanished.

No sooner have we digested this information or we’re taken back in time to one year earlier. Lola is out on the town in New York City and when she returns to their apartment, she finds her father stabbed and bleeding to death. While he is taken to hospital, she is packed off to Harrow Lake, to live with a grandmother she hadn’t even realised she had.

Harrow Lake is the perfect setting. Kat Ellis absolutely NAILS the small and creepy town, its weird and secretive inhabitants, its folklore and local legends like Mister Jitters, and infuses it with a vibe that is straight from the horror classics I loved when I was about Lola’s age. Knowing like we do that something is bound to happen to Lola, every little thing seems even more sinister, and although there are no hard horror scenes, there is a definite scary movie feel to Harrow Lake. In fact, I’m hoping so hard that this one will be picked up by the movie industry, done well Harrow Lake could be an excellent scary movie!

Harrow Lake made me think of C.J. Tudor’s books: despite the supernatural angle, there is also human vileness at the heart of things, so if you’re a C.J. Tudor fan I would highly recommend you give this one a whirl.

Harrow Lake is an addictive horroresque thriller that is guaranteed to give you some chills this summer. Recommended!

This book knows how to hit hard. Within one page of my eARC, I knew I was hooked, and Kat Ellis wasn’t afraid to raise the stakes before we’d even met the main character – I loved that I already knew I was pulled in for the long haul. The last chapter was equally potent – though of course I won’t talk about it because spoilers, and I loved the way it came back around to close the circle.

I adored Lola from the start. I have talked, at length, about how much I love unlikeable female characters. Because I do, I love them, and Lola is an excellent example of that. She’s got lots of unappealing, unfeminine traits, and each of them made me adore her more. I also think that it becomes clear the further into the book that a reader gets, that a lot of Lola’s perceived flaws are intentional. Initially, she seems a little bland and flavourless, and it’s only when you get to see Lola interact with Nolan, her famous father, and Moira, the grandmother she never knew, that you see the truth of it. Lola is a blank canvas on purpose, to survive social situations. She alters herself perfectly to fit the expectations of the person she’s speaking to – ensuring she behaves Optimally – and she resents the whole damn world for making her do it. With her father she’s obedient, and shakes off the resemblance of her mother, whereas with her grandmother she crafts herself perfectly in Lorelai’s image. Lola is our view point into Harrow Lake, an outsider as much as the reader is, and the fact that she’s an unreliable narrator only intensifies the atmosphere that the book creates.

The atmosphere throughout the entire book is intense. Amazingly, viscerally intense. I very rarely find a book that genuinely scares me, but about halfway through this book I dragged myself out to sit in the garden in the sunlight where I felt safer. That’s how powerful the effect this book had on me was. Everything in the book pulled together to create this effect. Lola, as the unreliable narrator, was telling us everything from her perspective, and as the reader gets further into the book it’s clear that her perspective is tainted in many ways to assume the worst.

The book is set in Harrow Lake, the town where Lola’s father filmed his greatest horror movie, Nightjar, and the town is frozen in time in the 1920s when the movie was set. Lola is walking in the footsteps of her father and her mother, and of Little Bird, Nightjar’s protagonist. The descriptions were so vivid that honestly? I’d love to watch Nightjar myself. Alongside the echoes of the horror movie, Harrow Lake is haunted by a town legend. Mister Jitters. I laughed the first time I read his name. I did not laugh any of the times after that. Mister Jitters was terrifying. He’s the town’s bogeyman, and the residents of Harrow Lake have developed strange routines and rituals to appease his hunger. These rituals like the bone tree, no burials, and other things I won’t talk about because spoilers, made him feel so powerful because everyone believed in him so fiercely, even when they didn’t say his name. I had to finish this in one sitting, because otherwise I knew I was going to have nightmares about him tap-tap-tapping.

On a completely opposite note, I really liked the little bit of romance in this book. I’m usually the first to criticise mis-placed romance, but this was perfect because it acknowledged that Lola was in no position to be feeling more than a crush. She was learning how to be herself, alone for the first time in her life, and how to discover a personality that wasn’t created by her father or grandmother. I loved that that was respected, and that Lola could have her crush without it being a part of the character arc we needed to see.

The ending of this book is basically completely impossible to talk about in a spoiler free way, which is a shame because I have THOUGHTS. But it tied together threads that were woven throughout the rest of the book, some of which I’d barely even noticed until suddenly they came together, telling a story about what makes a real monster. This book crawled under my skin and made itself a home there, and I can’t wait for people to start reading it so that I can scream about the ending with everyone I know.

"Look, these stories - small-town legends about monters or demons or evil spirits - they're all just an excuse for people to avoid seeing the real monsters all around them. It's a way to shatter the proverbial mirror." - Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis.

In the aftermath of finishing Harrow Lake, all I could do was stare off into space for a few minutes.

What did I just read?

I have to admit that the ending absolutely blew me away. The way in which everything tied back together was masterfully done and meant that the conclusion of the book ended on a very strong and somewhat emotional note.

The premise of the story is not wholly original, but that does not mean it was not extremely creepy and suspenseful. When she finds her father, Nolan, stabbed in his study (I think it was his study, if I remember correctly, if not – I apologise) and in hospital in a critical condition, teenage Lola is whisked away to her grandmother Moira’s house in Harrow Lake. The hometown of her mother, Lorelai as well as the town which catapulted Lola’s father’s directorial fame, Nightjar – a modern horror classic. Lola’s first taste of Harrow Lake is terrifying, bone chillingly horrifying. Every tap, every whisper; a local town horrow legend, Mister Jitters, eventually feels very real to Lola.

I wouldn’t say I was terrified when I was reading this, but I was creeped out. Especially in the way the grandmother was written, she could have very easily been a serial killer and I would not have been surprised. But what I think the emphasis of this book is, and why I included the quote which opens up this blog post, is that monsters are very much human. The behaviour of the grandmother, the behaviour of the father, the past behaviour Lola’s grandfather – they are each monsters in their own way. The creepy factor of this book lies in the fact that supernatural-type monsters of local myth are legitimately nothing to the very human actions of Lola’s family.

But I do want to know, is Mister Jitters real?! I do think that the ‘supernatural’ like occurences which are peppered throughout the novel are the result of trauma. Lola is a very interesting character, in that she is an unreliable narrator and who copes with her trauma in the various ways she knows how (such as her imaginary friend, Mary Ann who appears and reappears as a result of traumatic experiences). It took me at least 150 pages to fully get into the story and to become engaged with the character of Lola. She felt bland and dull with no personality in the beginning – but then I realised, it’s on purpose as a result of trauma. Lola has never been able to actually do anything for herself – her every action, her very voice, is controlled by her father. By the end of the novel, I was hoping with everything in me that she survives and finds her own way.

The reason as to why it didn’t hit the five star mark for me is because of the fact that it took me a while to get into the story as well as the varying plot holes. There are a more than aspects to the plot that are introduced, given next to nothing in terms of attention, and then we don’t read anything else about it. I think that would have to be one of the biggest weaknesses of this book, personally – but others may very well enjoy that about this book!

Overall, I rate it 4 out of 5 stars and I highly recommend it for any readers who enjoy thrillers. It will take you for a ride as well as confuse the hell out of you.

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis is a novel that truly terrified me. The writing is brilliantly atmospheric and created a sense of foreboding that seeped through every page.

There are some twists and turns within this novel that really leave you on edge. As the story unfolds you are given enough of the picture in the scene, but you add your own terrifying thoughts. For me this is what makes a horror story stand out, where the author terrifies you with their words but makes you frighten yourself as well. Kat Ellis, I applaud you for making me sleep with the light on.

A fuller review will be posted on my blog as part of a blog tour I’m taking part in on 5th May.

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis

Harrow Lake is a dark, twisty, and overall creepy mystery that had me in its grasp from page 1. The story is like a nightmare, and I wondered if it was real or if the character would eventually wake up and find out it was just her subconscious talking. Full of symbolism, motifs, and metaphors, it is appealing on many different levels.

Life is tough for Lola, who has not had her mother in her life since the tender age of five and whose father, a horror movie director, is overprotective and very controlling. Lola is not allowed modern conveniences such as laptops or cell phones and even does not have her key to the suite in which they are living.

As a result, Lola thinks in terms of what reactions and responses are Optimal with a capital O. Optimal are things that her father, Nolan Nox, will be pleased by, and sticking to what is Optimal is very important to Lola. She fears negative responses from Nolan for many reasons, one of which is she is afraid to lose him like she did her mother, Lorelei. He is all she has, or so she thinks until tragedy brings her grandmother into her life, and that is where the nightmare begins.

Lola is also concerned about seeing people for who they are – seeing the real person behind the metaphorical masks—seeing the bad along with the good, especially the tells from when they are lying. She also wants people to see that in her. She desperately wants people to see the real her, even in a town that her mother grew up in and in the clothes that her mother once wore.

Music and sound are an eerie motif that plays its way throughout the novel. They indicate when Lola is afraid, like in a horror movie. Sound is instrumental in a film to suggest fear and stimulate that same reaction in the audience. The use of sound in Lola’s story is masterfully used the same way.

The last few pages are crucial for understanding the story, and I have worked very hard not to give anything away. The ending blew my mind and made me realize just how creative and how compelling the story is.

A fantastically creepy thriller, Harrow Lake is fast-paced and tense. It's definitely a page-turner. It's intended for a YA audience but is sophisticated enough for adults to enjoy too.

The story is narrated by Lola, the troubled teenage daughter of a horror film director, Nolan Nox. When her father is attacked in his New York apartment, Lola is sent to stay with her grandmother in a town called Harrow Lake. It's a sinister place and was the location for her father's famous film, Nightjar. Secrets from the family's past are revealed, while Lola tries to ignore tales of the local boogeyman, Mister Jitters, and learns that the worst kind of horror is in real life.

Lola is a fascinating character. I liked her courage and cynicism. There are only a few other characters but they're all well-drawn. The book is cinematic; I could picture the settings, scenes and people very clearly. There were some good twists, although I did guess one of the big reveals. I hadn't heard of this author before but having read this book, I want to read more from her.

If you like thrillers and horror fiction, I recommend Harrow Lake. Thank you to The Write Reads, Penguin and NetGalley for my advance copy. The book will be published on July 9th.

Part of The Write Reads blog tour.

[NB. I don't know yet what date this review will be posted on my blog]