A fabulously written gripping story that was a pleasure to read. I would absolutely recommend this book, it was brilliant

The Hungry Dark by Jen William is a slow-burn thriller, with a story line set around a creepy house, a true crime podcast, and a killer at large.

Ashley is a psychic who is helping the police to locate a killer.....however, when she actually finds a missing body, her whole world changes.

Told in dual timelines, this novel is full of spooky imagery and family dynamics.

As a child Ashley Whitelam was haunted by strange ghostly figures she called the Heedful Ones but they haven't been around ever since what happened at Red Rigg House 18 years ago. Ashley, now an adult, has been working as a psychic medium with her brother, Aidan, providing her information about her audience via an earpiece. She doesn't have any real psychic talents so she is alarmed when Aidan announces he's had the idea of Ashley offering to help the police with a local case involving missing children. Ashley is cajoled into taking part by her father & brother, but no-one is more surprised than her when she leads the police to the body of the latest missing child. Now the police think she is involved in the kidnappings & murders & the press are beginning to pay attention too. In desperation, Ashley turns to a true crime podcaster, Freddie Miller, for help in finding out who is behind the crimes but can she trust him? Can she trust anyone?

The paranormal aspect of the story was the most interesting for me & I thought it was well-handled - eerie but without being too over-the-top. Basically Ashley has an 'Oda Mae Brown' moment where the paranormal becomes very real to a 'fake' psychic. The mystery aspect was less interesting so as the baddie was really easy to spot so there was no real surprise in the 'reveal' at the end. I thought it was well-written but went on for a bit too long. Overall, it's an intriguing mix of suspense & paranormal horror, but slightly too longwinded in getting to the point. 3.5 stars (rounded up)

My thanks to NetGalley & publisher, HarperCollins UK, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This book focuses on Ashley, a psychic that makes her family money through scamming others. When children start to go missing and many turn up dead, Ashley becomes involved in the investigation.

When ghostly figures (that she calls “The Heedful Ones”) return after an 18-year absence and lead her to one of the child’s bodies, suspicion is cast onto Ashley. She meets a podcaster and together they investigate, forcing Ashley to confront things that happened in her past also.

I enjoyed this book, however it was quite a slow burn and hard to get into. I love Ashley’s character; she was well written and very likable. Her relationships with her family members were great too, especially how dysfunctional the relationship with her father was.

There were a lot of storylines in this book and personally I think I would have enjoyed it more if there were less that were covered in greater detail. This is my first book by Jen Williams and I will definitely be checking out some more.

I’m going to start with an apology. I was supposed to have my review before The Hungry Dark was published, but then I fell behind on stuff. I’ll be honest, I thought this might happen, because even though I was eyeing this book on NetGalley, I knew time would be tight, so I would have let it slide. But then an opportunity came to get my hands on an ARC, and the temptation was just too great. At least we are still in the release month, so…

The Hungry Dark is my first Jen Williams book ever. I know, I know. I just somehow never had the chance to read anything by her, and that was the biggest reason why I eventually decided to get the ARC. I went into the book blind, and I had no expectations set. I know some of my friends love her books, so I hoped that this would be a bandwagon I could happily jump on. The jury is still out on that, but I can say for sure that this most definitely wasn’t my last Jen Williams book. I breezed through it in a couple of days and boy am I lucky with thrillers/mysteries this year.

The Hungry Dark tells Ashley’s story, who lives with her family in a small village in Cumbria and works as a medium. After an accident in her childhood, her father decided it would be a good idea to make money out of the media circus and so decided to build up a career for Ashley and the family. She is an adult now, and as she is about to face the place of her literal nightmares, she also finds herself in the middle of a police investigation of kidnapped and murdered children all over England. What starts out as a con, takes a wild turn and gives Ashley the opportunity to face her demons – be they shadowy or very real.

There are a lot of things to love about this book. The setting, the writing, the characters (and not necessarily their personalities but how they are written, their complexity, that they feel like real people and not at all one dimensional), the plot, and the relationships of the characters. I’m not going to go into everything because we’d be here for a very long time, but I’d like to talk about a few aspects that made this book so good in my eyes.

For me, the main focus of The Hungry Dark was the family dynamics. I know this kinda sounds weird since there is a murder investigation going on with mysterious elements and I promise it gets just enough attention to keep you invested, but what got me invested was Ash and her relationship with her family. If I had to describe it, I probably would go for toxic. It certainly felt uncomfortable to read about their interactions, and some bits hit a bit too close to home. The way Ash was treated like a troublesome teenager instead of the 32 years old woman she is was just cringy AF. I honestly was more invested in Ash getting away from that family than I was in finding out what’s behind the main mystery. It was lovely how different she was around Freddie, how he could make her come out of her shell.

A common complaint with me is that the conclusion feels rushed. I think Williams handled the revelations really well, there were still surprises coming until the end, keeping you on the edge of your seat. Or turning the pages, really. She kept the suspense up, but also we got clues throughout, and even though you slowly start putting the puzzle together, it still manages to punch at the end. It has some predictable bits, but The Hungry Dark is certainly one of the better thrillers I’ve read. My only complaint is that the book ends abruptly. Don’t get me wrong, the main plot gets wrapped up nicely, we get answers and everything. But since I was so invested in Ash’s relationship with her family, I wanted to see more about how things went down there.

This might not be my most coherent review, so let’s just say I can absolutely see why Jen Williams has such loyal fans. The Hungry Dark is a delightfully dark and twisted thriller, about toxicity, really. And how every act has its consequences. That sacrifice is not always the solution we seek. All in all, The Hungry Dark is a novel I can recommend to anyone who loves a bit of heavy reading. Well worth your time!

This was a gripping read, I thought the characters were intriguing and I'm going to keep an eye out for more from this author.

This is an intriguing novel with some very interesting characters and an underlying spooky feel that works very well.

I enjoy books that feature psychics and podcasters so this was a doubly good read for me. Overall it had a great hook and an addictive feel to it.

Slightly slow to take off is my one tiny negative but once it kicks in it is very entertaining and a great read.

The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams

As a child, Ashley Whitelam was haunted by ghostly figures no one else could see. Silent and watchful, these Heedful Ones followed her wherever she went. She hasn’t seen them for eighteen years, not since that fateful night at Red Rigg House.

But now they’re back, and they’re trying to tell her something.

Children start to disappear across the Lake District and Ashley becomes involved in the investigation, eager for free publicity to promote her work as a psychic. She never expected the collaboration to bear fruit, but when she discovers the body of one of the missing children, everything changes.

The police are convinced that she’s involved with the killings, and the press are hounding her for answers. Desperate to clear her name, she works with true crime podcaster, Freddie Miller, to investigate. As they look deeper into the disappearances, Ashley must dig into the demons of her past, before the nightmare in the present comes for her too.
A very different book with a unique plotline , and for me not the usual genre of a book I'd go for but enjoyed this one.
Really liked the character Ashley and as someone who lives in Cumbria the area it was set in .

4.5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2024/04/18/the-hungry-dark-by-jen-williams/
My Five Word TL:DR Review: Loved it. Creepy and Macabre

This is an author that I already really enjoy reading, her fantasy books are so, so good and I highly recommend them. She’s recently dipped her toes into thriller/chillers and I’ve been enjoying these as well but The Hungry Dark is my absolute favourite so far. It kept me totally gripped. This is a creepy murder mystery, with a great setting that takes a little hike into the land of the supernatural (but in a very low key fashion).

This story revolves around Ashley Whitelam. A psychic who is something of a conundrum. Ashley has always been able to see shadowy figures that she calls The Heedful Ones. They don’t cause her any distress and in fact you’d think that this ability would play into her psychic abilities – but it doesn’t help her in that respect at all and in fact Ashley’s career is a farce, she’s a con artist. She performs psychic readings to audiences but in fact she wears an earpiece and her brother feeds her with the information she delivers after checking out the Facebook pages of the audience members who are grieving a lost one. This isn’t someting that Ashley is proud of but following a traumatic childhood event that she miraculously survived (having had a vision of the disaster) she rose to fame and unfortunately became the family bread winner in the process. She now finds herself in the unenviable position of being trapped and with very little life or control of her own even at the age of 32(ish). If this wasn’t enough of a problem in itself her brother volunteers Ashley to help the police to try and locate the body of a young boy who is missing and believed to be the latest victim of the ‘Gingerbread House murderer – eight children have already fallen victim and the police seem to have no leads. When Ashley actually succeeds in finding the body things spiral out of control in many ways bringing her some unwanted attention. But I wont delve further into the plot.

So, instead I’ll write about what worked so well for me.

I liked Ashley. I felt really frustrated on her behalf as she struggled to balance the career that she never wanted with the responsibility of providing for her family, her father would even go to the lengths of taking her car keys and moving her car – for goodness sake, she’s a thirty year old worman. The word trapped doesn’t even cover it. Surprisingly, having told her parents that she could see shadowy figures as a child she was told never to speak of this again. Ironic that the actual ability that she does have has been smothered by an overprotective father who thinks she is lying but then demands she lie every day for a living. Also, ironically, in spite of being a con artist Ashley is really quite gullible, easy to give her trust and not always able to see the bigger picture.

Ashley teams up with an American podcaster and the two do a little bit of digging into the Gingerbread murders, uncovering information not released to the general public. I liked this aspect to the story. We don’t follow the police investigation so the insertion of this amateur sleuthing element was very intriguing.

The family dynamics were really interesting and play into the story well. Ashley’s father has taken on the role of manager/protector and pushes Ashley into interviews and situations that she is rarely happy with. Her mother was traumatised by the experience Ashled endured as a child and in actual fact Ashley now feels the need to protect her. She gets on well with her brother but even that relationship has issues.

Set in the Lake DIstrict and in particular a small village known as Green Beck the folklore elements feed the creepy element, particularly the notion of the fells being cursed. Green Beck has a long history, not always palatable and on top of this much of the story takes place at Red Rigg House, a spooky and rambling gothic estate overshadowed by an ominous mountain that looms menacingly.

The writing is great. The dialogue just flows really well, the pacing is fast and there’s plenty of atmosphere and tension. On top of this we have a dual timeline where we flit back and forth between Ashley now and as a child, the trauma that she experienced gradually unfolding.

Put simply, in a nutshell, this worked for me in so many ways. Gripping, grisly murders, spooky mansion, cursed village, creepy shadow figures. A family with fraught emotions balanced on a knife edge and an MC being pursued by the police, journalists and a host of people from hangers on, bereaved in search of comfort and those determined to uncover Ashley for the sham artist she is. It all builds into the most delicious and stormy finale.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Ashley is a psychic but she is a fraud. Pressured by her family they use the internet to provide fake readings to people for money. But Ashley sees things that other people can not and when some children go kissing and Ashley finds the body is she a fraud, are her abilities real or is she a murderer. Ashley teams up with a podcaster to investigate when she realises there is no way she can distance frok the murders and that maybe something or someone is after her too.

I initially had trouble getting into this book and liking the characters but I was hooked in enough by the story to continue. I am glad I did as the book had a great ending with some jaw dropping twists. Definitely worth a go as so many positive reviews for this book.

Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK and Jen Williams for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Hungry Dark is the first novel I’ve read by Jen Williams that isn’t firmly based in fantasy territory and it was a nice change of genre for me. Set in the Lake District, Ashley is a medium who contacts the dead members of audience members families in order to make a living. Her whole family is involved in her “gift” and push her into sometimes taking advantage however she does have a genuine connection to the otherworld which becomes clear later through the book. I really enjoyed this, I thought the flashbacks worked well to set up the incident from Ashley’s past that had affected everything so deeply and give a bit more background to her friends and family. I thought the ending was a bit disappointing-purely because it was set up so well to be paranormal or similar and ended up being not quite that..?! Anyway a solid 4 star read and I’ll basically read anything this author writes at this point-even ones that push me out of my little fantasy comfort zone!

A fantastic read about a young woman called Ashley, who sees creepy “ghosts” and has done since a little girl.
She didn’t realise what they were as a youngster, until a traumatic episode whilst on holiday with a children’s charity at a large house in the deep countryside, and after that they vanished from her life.
She and her family make a living from live seances, and as a live murder case is shown on all the channels as news, her family decides to make her offer her services to the police in an attempt to increase waning audience numbers . She sees her missing “ghosts” again while out on a victim hunt with the police, and they show her to the dead body of the missing boy. The police are suspicious of her. Suddenly she is popular and is wanted by all reporters to tell her story. She befriends an American man called Freddie who has a podcast about murder cases and he asks her to join him while investigating the case. She agrees much to her family’s dislike.
I read this quickly and loved it!! I was totally absorbed in there!!
Many thanks to Harper Collins Uk for the chance to read this arc copy for review consideration via Netgalley.
#Netgalley, #HarperCollinsUk, #SennyDreadful19.

The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams is a creepy and disturbing tale that will have you on the edge of your seat.
Ashley Whitelam makes a living as a psychic medium, telling people what they want or need to hear. When her brother suggests that she might get some good publicity by offering to help the police locate a child who is just the latest in a series of mysterious child disappearances in the Lake District. However she gets more than she bargained for when she discovers the mutilated body of the missing boy while helping the police. Instead of publicity she is now a suspect, along with other members of her family , some of whom have somewhat of a dodgy criminal past. She cannot explain how she lead the police to the body because she knows they will not believe her- in fact she was led there by the Heedful Ones, the strange ghostly figures that she has seen since she was a little girl . In order to clear her name she will have to dig into her traumatic past and the secrets she will uncover are truly shocking.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I really liked the character of Ashley, I found myself rooting for her to get out from under her father's control and free herself to find the future she wanted. The author makes excellent use of dual timelines in her storytelling to show us how the traumas of Ashley's past continue to impact on her day to day life. I thought the balance between horror and thriller was excellent, it had all the creepiness I was hoping for as well as a mystery that kept me guessing, The pacing was excellent, the slow build of tension definitely had me on edge and keen to see how the story would end.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

This is a slow-burn creepy horror/thriller set in the UK's Lake District. The setting plays a big part of the story here - it's beautiful, ominous, old, mysterious.

But let's start at the beginning. Ashley Whitelam is a psychic, and yes she cheats money out of the vulnerable with an earpiece and a voice in her ear when she performs her shows. But she also really sees things - The Heedful Ones - and when she looks into a recent disappearance to help out the police, they lead her straight to the body of a little boy... But can she really help solve this thing?

As readers, we follow two timelines. One in 2004 when a much younger Ashley experienced some trauma in a big country house in the same area, and one 'now'. I sometimes get frustrated when information is held back from the reader (ie the ramifications of the earlier timeline) but it is handled well here.

In the present, Ashley is in her 30s and I think one of the challenges here for reader and author is that she lives in an incredibly toxic family environment - at times one can't help think, why on earth hasn't she left by now? She's a grown woman! But I think the past timeline as well as the present show the way this situation has developed over time - so it's very nearly believable that she would still be there.

I don't read a lot of horror thrillers, but I really enjoyed the slow build of the creepiness in this title. I've read Jen Williams before and she excels at doing this. I also really like how she uses the setting of her books to full impact - so many (albeit domestic) thrillers are set in 'generic town', whereas this story takes place somewhere that feels solid and real - even with all the supernatural element!

I found the plot and resolution satisfying - I did begin to guess where it might go towards the end, but not all of it, which was a nice surprise.

A wonderfully atmospheric read.

An eerie murder mystery thriller, with a supernatural element making for a compelling read! I loved the way there are flashbacks throughout, unveiling past events and developing the FMC backstory! The toxic family dynamics were interesting to read and added to the FMC being isolated within the plot. You definitely feel for her and don’t know who to trust. There is also some light romance sub-plot that doesn’t add much to the actual story but was fun to read. The pace is steady throughout, I wanted to keep reading and find out the next reveal! Then there’s the build up to a big finale that only good thrillers have! This definitely delivered on that and it ended on a high.
Macabre, disturbing and thrilling. Definitely a must read for lovers of this genre.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

The Hungry Dark is not my usual genre but I was kindly sent a copy to read, so dived right in. From it's creepy and graphic horror-infused opening right through, this book is true supernatural horror but there's also a murder mystery thriller element, which I do love.

Ashley is a psychic and when she (albeit accidentally) finds a missing child for the police, they assume she is involved. She's then in a race to clear her name and enlists the help of a true crime podcaster to do that.

I like books set around podcasts in some way, so that was an extra added appeal here for me and the fast pace combined with pushing me out of my reading comfort zone with the supernatural additions made this an exciting, but chilling, read.

Supernatural, tick. Thriller, tick. Page turner, tick.
This book features Ashley, a young woman bound to her family in a bizarre sense of need and control. In her youth she displayed some supernatural tendancies through visions of the 'heedful one' however her parents were dismissive though as she got older exploited her as a 'medium". This is only part of the story as Ashley returns to Red Rigg House, the scene of a significant event in her childhood and she uncovers an uncomfortable tuth about countless murders.

When a book is dubbed as "perfect for fans of C.J. Tudor and Alex North", you can definitely count me in. And everything about this book drew me in - the beautiful cover, the striking font, the intriguing title, and the chilling synopsis.

And the prologue delivered everything I was hoping for! And then a climactic scene near the end delivered everything I was hoping for, too. There were parts that I absolutely loved dotted throughout. But it definitely took me on a bit of a hit-and-miss journey overall, as the rest of the book didn't quite hit on the same level of dark and macabre.

There were just too many distractions for me. I didn't care much for Ashley's family or her relationship with the podcaster. Had there been more focus on Ashley's past, had she taken it upon herself to discover the truth and dig deeper into the murders going on, I would have been much more engaged. But instead, other aspects took over her story, and they just weren't as interesting.

The book also really reminded me of a popular release with a similar plot (which I loved), so I constantly felt like it was trying to take influence from that, especially with the podcaster side of things. But had it gone down its own path with more focus and impact on what was actually going on in this town, I would have absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, I feel like this part of the plot took too much of a backseat with everything else going on.

Still, I can definitely see its potential, and I know this will be a great book for many readers! There was certainly enough that I enjoyed about it for me to recommend it; I'm just always eager for books like this to be absolutely brimming with darkness rather than just flirting with it.

I do love a dark and twisty read, with elements of the supernatural. And 'The Hungry Dark' fits perfectly into this category.
Ashley acts as a medium, telling her audiences that she can speak with their deceased lived ones. Her brother and father work behind the scenes to convince her audiences of her integrity. However, the reader quickly learns that all of the sessions are actually a setup and her family are using Ashley's 'gifts' to make a living. It's difficult at this point to feel any liking for her father or brother but we learn that Ashley is uncomfortable with their way of living and that she is seeing the 'Heedful Ones'. So she does have some sort of 'gift'. These 'Heedful Ones' are shadowy figures that appear when danger is imminent and Ashley is fearful of their re-appearance.
Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about the event, some years earlier at Red Rigg House, when a tragic accident occurred.
In the present day, Ashley's brother offers her services as a medium to the police, to help find a missing child after a series of disappearances across the Lake District. With the unexpected assistance of the Heedful Ones, Ashley is able to assist in the investigation and soon finds herself, as the main suspect.
As Ashley struggles to prove her innocence, the Heedful Ones come increasingly closer and more often. The chills also come more frequently and I enjoyed the mix of mystery and paranormal.

A dark and disturbing story but a compelling read. At first, the events, which had such a crushing effect upon our protagonist are just alluded to, but it is finally revealed to the reader what horror was let loose the night her life changed her forever.

The story is very cleverly cloaked by the writer such that it’s almost impossible to decide who is or isn’t an ally to Ashley. Will she survive, either mentally or physically, on her first visit back to the Hall since that dreadful night in her youth? The story is filled with dark and foreboding episodes for Ashley to contend with. Will she discover the story behind all those missing children?

This is such a compelling read and I loved the ending. It comes to a real crescendo. Anyone that reads this book, will not be disappointed.