Robert Sutherland, Surveyor for Her Majesty’s Ordnance is part of a group that is surveying a yet uncharted part of the very north of Scotland in 1871.
“I was – I am – a geographer. A cartographer, as well as a surveyor, a naturalist, and a man of science whose faith in the ground beneath his feet is as unshakeable as the old red sandstone upon which Caithness stands.”
After an accidental fall in marshy land, Sutherland is incapacitated with a serious fever. He is taken to Leask, a grand but dilapidated house owned by the Sinclair family, and only inhabited by Lady Sinclair, her daughter Isabel and a few servants. While he recuperates there, he sees frightening apparitions of a female form. Is this a Cailleach, the shapeshifter of Scottish folklore or is it indeed much more personal to Robert’s past?
There are atmospheric descriptions of the bleak Caithness landscape with its treacherous bogs, marsh gas and colourful heather. “Perhaps a movement in the mist, as it billowed and swirled around a receding figure? All at once it eddied and thinned, and there, up ahead in the gloom.”

A bit too much repetition on the “apparition” front. Less would have been more. Plus there’s a Mills and Boone-esque twist that slightly cheapens the story.
Just squeaked in at 4stars.

In Autumn 1871, the Ordnance Survey are gradually mapping rural Scotland. After an accident, one of the surveyors, Robert Sutherland, is forced to recuperate at nearby Leask House with Mrs Sinclair and her daughter.

The lady of the manor is strange and abrasive but Robert is captivated by the young Miss Sinclair.

Every night he is plagued by nightmares of a woman in the marshes, reminiscent the Cailleach, an eerie hag from Scottish folklore.

As Robert becomes more entrenched at Leask Manor he finds more about his past and what draws him there. But the Sinclairs are hiding something.

Are the nightmares just a fever dream or is the Cailleach trying to warn him?

For fans of Michelle Paver’s ghost stories.

Set in the 1800's this, the first of four stories, is a pacy and definitely creepy read.

The author has wriiten a brilliant tale, where i wondered at times if the narrater was truly insane or if he was seeing visions and hauntings.

I loved the gothis settting and the atmosphere is all consuming for the reader.

'Hawthorn' by Elaine Thomson is the first in a planned quartet of ghost stories, all set in Scotland during the four ‘turning points’ of the year. This introduction to the series is set in the Autumn of 1871 in the weeks leading up to the Gaelic festival Samhain – 31st October – the beginning of winter. It is a time when the barrier between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, allowing spirits, particularly ancestors, to return briefly to the mortal realm. Thomson has subtitled her novel 'A Scottish Ghost Story' – so – armed with this information - the reader is under no illusions about what to expect.

The narrative purports to be 'The True Account of Robert Sutherland concerning the Haunting of Leask House in the County of Caithness'. We learn that our narrator is incarcerated in the Inverness District Asylum and intends to set the record straight about the events that have led his life to this point. In many respects, this is a tried and tested fictional formula – but a successful one nonetheless. It raises numerous questions and sets the reader to work in trying to piece together events and characters and to speculate about what might have happened. Sutherland – a Surveyor for Her Majesty’s Ordnance – has accepted an assignment helping to chart one of Scotland’s most remote north-easterly counties. After an accident, he is taken to the neighbouring Leask House to recuperate. Here, he meets the final remnants – mother and daughter - of the Sinclair family, local landed gentry who have hit hard times. And so starts our narrative journey.

This is a beautifully written modern recreation of Victorian Gothic, creating something akin to Susan Hill’s 'The Woman in Black'. The setting is eerie, bleak and atmospheric, both the crumbling grandeur and shadowy corridors of Leask House, and the surrounding boglands and ‘dubh lochs’ (Gaelic for black lakes). There is nothing more fear-inducing than being cut off from civilisation by a hostile landscape. From the bedroom window, the narrator can see a sinister standing stone that often resembles a ghostly woman, and fog is a regular feature of the weather system. Robert Sutherland is an interesting narrator and we are never quite sure how reliable he is. As a scientist, he takes a rational view of events – but soon comes to learn that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth’ and we can never be sure how far we trust his instincts.

Many features of the narrative come straight from Victorian sensationalist fiction: secrets, madness, murder, ghosts. In a time of social mobility, Sutherland is a working man, educated at the University and employed to chart and catalogue the world according to the strictures of science. The Sinclairs, alternatively, have been used to easy access to privilege, wealth and servants – but a mix of unwise investments and decadent over-spending by the male family members has left the remaining female family members struggling to make ends meet. As the two worlds collide, an exciting story emerges.

Overall, this is a very entertaining read: well-written, engaging and suspenseful. There are many twists and turns in the plot and the characters are believable, although coloured by Sutherland’s perceptions. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Lovers of Victorian Gothic, of ghost stories on a dark winter’s evening or of creepy folklore will enjoy it too.

As an addendum, I have pondered over why the novel is called 'Hawthorn'. As far as I noticed (and I may have missed something), there is only one mention of hawthorn when Sutherland visits the small local kirk that has been decorated for harvest. Hawthorn trees are deeply connected to both Halloween and the Samhain festival and are associated with magic and the supernatural. In this scene, the kirk has assimilated the symbol for its Christian harvest festival – but it is certainly true in this novel that traces of our pagan roots can never fully be erased.

The field of Gothic horror has a new mistress.

"Hawthorn" opens in Inverness, 1871, where Robert Sutherland, geographer and cartographer, is writing his account of the events which led to his incarceration in Inverness District Asylum. In his own words, a haunting, an old house a series of events beyond his control all led to his downfall. As the narrative develops we learn that he and his team of Ordnance Survey surveyors were moving across the wilds of Caithness, charting the land for a new six-inch scale map. When he falls foul of the uneven ground, and badly injures his ankle, he is transported to an old house, under the care of an elderly woman and her daughter. But as he languishes in the house, things start to happen which make him question his sanity.

And so the reader, and Sutherland are slowly drawn deeper and deeper into a nightmare of visitations, hauntings and visions, as the house and the wild highlands of Scotland close around him. Readers who know this area will revel in the descriptive and captivating prose, and as we encounter dour highlanders, peaty bogs, and broken down mills, the reality of post-Clearances Highland is brough vividly to life. Sutherland's slow decline into madness is helped along by revelations, discoveries and mysteries, which make him question his entire life up til now. The cast includes an old, mysterious doctor, a dour miller and his daughter, and a benefactor who may not be what he seems. Each one, nicely painted against the wild canvas of Highland Scotland.

This book reads like some classic 19th-century Gothic tale. The language is perfect - cold and stark, and the epistolary nature of the narrative means we only see events unfold from Sutherland's point of view - how much are we to believe and how much is in his head?

The final few pages nicely offer some answers, but still leave the reader wondering...

Fans of ES Thomson will know her for her Jem Flockhart books - but this new venture in to gothic horror will undoubtedly garner a whole new audience. If you enjoy Susan Hill, Laura Purcell or Michelle Paver you'll love this. Heartily recommended.

A wonderfully atmospheric read.

Thomson has written a gripping, dark, well paced Victorian gothic horror that I couldn't put down. The characters were excellently written and I loved that Sutherland was an unreliable narrator - this really added to the tension of the story.

Highly recommended.

This was a breath of fresh air in the world of ghost stories. Beautifully written in a Victorian gothic style, Hawthorn delivered hauntingly dark, gripping, and suspenseful read. Although the book begins slowly, I was absorbed by the bleakly atmospheric and eerie setting. Very well structured. I took away half a star, purely for the time I spent looking up various Scottish terminology.

I would award this 4.5 stars. Great read!.

Just the right amount of "is there something happening here, or is he mad?" going on, to have me wondering all the way through.
The story has plenty of atmosphere, and enough secrets to unravel to keep everyone happy.
An enjoyable read.