Atmospheric and tense, this book follows Norah as she leaves Glasgow in the late 19th century for Corrain House in the far north east of Scotland. Her purpose is to marry Lord Barland - a man she has never met before, but who held the majority of her late father's debt. Used to the noise and gossip of the city, she knows it will take time to adjust to her remote and austere home, with superstitious villagers and desolate surroundings.

But her new husband is remote and vague, despite the friendship they had struck up over correspondence before the marriage was agreed. She can't make out if the housekeeper, Agnes, wants her there. The house is forbidding. And she starts having disturbing dreams...

Gothic horror isn't a genre I turn to often, but this book is very readable and once I'd started I'd often do 'one more chapter' when I should have been putting it down. The undercurrent of dread as Norah becomes more sure something is wrong gradually cranks up the tension, and her relationship with Agnes is well drawn. I could almost smell the misty landscape and dark, damp house as I read. The ending felt a little rushed, but it might just have been that I wanted to spend more time with the characters.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

'The Needfire' is a fabulously gothic tale that reminded me strongly of 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. I don't think I can give greater praise than that!
Set in the remote wilds of Scotland, the story follows Norah, a woman with a secret in her past who is desperate to escape from the confines of society. But marriage is a trap, her new home a crumbling cage, and her haunted heart is burning with a longing she can barely name.
It's always a dream to read a beautifully written and well-crafted novel, as it forces me to slow down and savour every word. This one is definitely worth taking the time over.

This was an absolutely phenomenal read - it belongs with the great classics of Gothic Horror. The atmosphere was chilling and tense, the mystery had me intrigued and eagerly reading to see what would happen next, the characters were complex and interesting, and the setting was hauntingly beautiful. I cannot praise this book enough. And on top of all that, we get a dynamic and gripping queer relationship! This was absolutely fantastic, if I could give it more than 5 stars I would.

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

Deeply atmospheric, this story lingered in my mind.

A woman arrives at a desolate piece of Scotland to marry a man she's never met. Fleeing a past and pain she can't bring herself to consider, she welcomes this chance to start again. To build something, but in the wildness of her new land, her new house, her new relationships, she finds nothing is as it seems or she expects.

There is a deliberate slowness to the build up, a skilled luxury that allows the tension to creep in, slowly but surely. Just like the fog that presses in on the house, the sense of 'wrongness' grows more and more intense. In less skilled hands, it would have been too easy to rush to the drama, to the moments that caught in the mind but thankfully the authors allow it to grow like the herbs that are scattered throughout the text.

What follows is a delicious gothic horror, and a tale that leaves you constantly doubting the motives and actions of everyone within.

~Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for a honest review~

The Needfire by M.K. Hardy is a haunting and atmospheric sapphic Gothic horror, steeped in eerie suspense and evocative Scottish folklore. Perfect for fans of Rebecca and The Hacienda, this debut immerses the reader in a world of isolation, longing, and creeping dread.

Fleeing her past mistakes in Glasgow, Norah Mackenzie enters a marriage of convenience, hoping for freedom in her new life at Corrain House, an isolated estate in the wilds of northern Scotland. But something is deeply wrong. Her husband, once warm in his letters, is distant and unknowable. Shadows flicker at the edges of her vision, ghost ships haunt the coastline, and the land itself seems to pulse with a sinister presence. Her only source of solace is the enigmatic housekeeper, Agnes Gunn, whose allure is as unsettling as it is irresistible.

As the walls of Corrain House close in, Norah must unravel the secrets that shroud her home, her husband, and Agnes—before she is consumed by them.

With lyrical prose and a chilling, immersive setting, The Needfire is a masterfully crafted Gothic tale of desire, entrapment, and the supernatural. It is the kind of book that demands to be savoured, its creeping horror lingering long after the final page.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

A new bride is drawn to her enigmatic housekeeper in this gothic sapphic tale of supernatural magic, the legacies of witches, and repressed longing. An immersive novel that fills the reader with creeping dread through the decadent prose dripping with blood and the darkly horrifying supernatural elements.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐌𝐊 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐲

Wow. What an amazing, fantastically written story. This is an excellent piece of gothic fiction.

Set in 1890s Scotland, the story follows Norah, who goes to a remote house to be married to a man she’s only corresponded with by letter. When she gets there, her new husband hardly talks and the housekeeper Agnes is acting suspiciously….everyone has lots of secrets which unfold over the course of the story. The house and local land are spooky and mysterious. The descriptions of the house, sea and landscape are poetic and stunning.
Beautifully gothic, atmospheric with creeping tension this scared the pants off me! I enjoyed the slow start and then fast pace towards the end.
Loved Norah and her development throughout the book. Really enjoyed the resolution too.
Amazing! Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the copy to review!

When I saw this book was perfect for fans of Rebecca and The Hacienda I knew I would love it, and, I wasn't wrong I devoured it. I love Gothic fiction and I just couldn't put this one down.
It was full of descriptions that made me feel like I could picture the house and the scenery surrounding the house shrouded in mist.
I loved it and can't wait to read more by the author

This is one of those books where any time I picked it up I didn't want to put it back down. It's a sapphic gothic horror and anyone who knows me knows that is a combination I'm bound to love. Seeing it compared to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca on NetGalley and in a few reviews instantly made me curious because that is such an iconic novel and a very bold statement to make. And I honestly wasn't disappointed.

This is a beautifully written gothic horror/romance following Norah a woman who wants to escape her past in the city by marrying a man she's been exchanging letters with who lives in a remote area on the Scottish coast. When she gets there she quickly starts to realise that living at Corrain House might not quite be the married life she envisioned herself having.

The setting of Corrain House works so well for this novel. It's an old building on the cliffs which feels as though it is fighting against the natural world surrounding it. Every description we are given makes it sound like a dark unsettling place to be and the land around it doesn't sound much more welcoming. The weather is dark and moody and it all works well to make Norah feel isolated from the outside world. The residents of Corrain don't help much on that front either as they seem distant and unwelcoming and clearly have secrets they'd like to keep hidden.

Plot wise I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was tense and mysterious throughout. There were some things I saw coming but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing it let me feel a little smart for putting things together a while before Norah did (though I don't think we can hold it against her since I had the unfair advantage of knowing what genre of novel she was in). Still even with predicting some things others came as a complete surprise and looking back I can see the clues/foreshadowing that was present which does make twists/reveals feel more satisfying to me.

It does have a fairly slow pace at times but I feel like that's the norm for the genre and in my opinion it really helps the tension and suspense grow. To be honest if anything I think that it could have been slightly slower paced in parts as although I felt like I understood Norah and her backstory really well I would have loved for Agnes' backstory to be a bit more fleshed out.

Overall if you are a fan of gothic literature but wish it had more lesbian romance in it this is a pretty perfect book for you. My only regret is reading this in the middle of a summer heatwave instead of during autumn/winter when it's all dark and cold out. I definitely feel like it would have added something to the experience for me.

Thank you to Rebellion/Solaris Publishing and Net Galley for a free e-ARC of 'The Needfire' by MK Hardy.

The Needfire, set in the 1800s, follows Norah Mackenzie, a queer woman who enters a marriage with a Lord in the north of Scotland. The marriage proposition began from convenience but they begin to develop a closer relationship when corresponding with each other before they meet. However, when she arrives at the dreary and haunting Corrain House and meets her 'distant, melancholic husband', she realises her new life is not what she had expected.

'"We've left scars all over this land. Our rigs and furrows. Our bothies and kilns. Our dry dykes and cairns. Everything fails. You have to wonder when we'll learn." Norah blinked in confusion. "Learned what?" "We're not wanted. We don't belong here."'

I absolutely loved The Needfire! As with most of the ARCs I request, I began the book with no expectations other than being intrigued by the story's premise. I was blown away by the prose and the story's concept - The Needfire is written beautifully and builds the atmosphere of Corrain House and the surrounding land very well. At times, the vocabulary felt a little unnecessarily complex and I found myself having to google a lot of words to understand what was being said - although that may be the fault of my vocabulary and can be somewhat understood through the time period of the book. My only other criticism is that there were some parts of the story that I would have liked to have seen a bit more fleshed out

'You are afraid of the border places. You are afraid of that strand of silver that divides the land from the sea. It promises only uncertainty, change. You cross it quickly, never linger. You put out to open water and you never ever look back lest you see something there you could not stand to lose... You are afraid of thresholds - you carry your brides across them, and your dead out through the wall lest they know the way back. You bury the sinful and unbaptised beneath the perimeters of your kirks. You are afraid of the courtyard. Enclosed on all sides and yet open to the sky, that cursed tree grasping for the light. Growing things where nothing should grow. You are afraid of the moments between not knowing and knowing. That limbo between the path not taken and the consequences of actions. You are afraid of the fork in the road.'

We see Norah slowly lose her mind the longer she stays at Corrain House - MK Hardy write this aspect of the story really well, it was extremely immersive and unsettling. I also loved seeing Norah's relationship with the housekeeper 'Gunn' develop as she settles into the house and they begin to understand and trust each other more.

'Agnes Gunn did not need to use her will on Norah, did not need to ply her with herbs. She had captured her, heart and soul, and Norah could no sooner gainsay her than she could stop the tide.'

Without giving away any spoilers, I enjoyed the ending, it felt like a satisfying and full-circle way for the story to come to a close. I will definitely revisit this book again!

The Needfire is a richly atmospheric sapphic gothic horror. Set against the wild, untameable landscape of the Scottish Highlands, MK Hardy crafts a haunting tale steeped in mystery, emotional intensity, sensuality and supernatural dread. At times it brought to mind classic works like Rebecca, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
The novel follows Norah Mackenzie, a woman who escapes the confines of Glasgow for a marriage of convenience with a stranger she knows only through his letters. Her arrival at Corrain House quickly unravels any illusion of safety or predictability as Norah finds her husband cold and awkward, and the housekeeper, Agnes Gunn, intriguing.
Hardy excels at building a slow-burn tension, infusing every corner of Corrain House and the wild landscape beyond its walls with foreboding. The novel’s gothic elements are delivered with a delightful darkness: shadowy corridors, unsettling smells and sounds, an unrelenting fog and a creeping sense that the past is not done with the present.
The Needfire is perfect for fans of gothic fiction and writers like Stacey Halls and Jessie Burton. MK Hardy's prose is evocative, poetic at times, and always deeply rooted in a sense of place. In short, The Needfire is a captivating and eerie novel that I raced through.
Rating: ★★★★★

In short, this book has all the trademarks of a gothic story in the best of ways, living up to every expectation that a lover of this genre might have (myself included). If you ask me, it reinvents the genre rather than directly subverting it, which shows a true appreciation of the gothic.

It has atmosphere and living scenery, complete with historical underpinnings that encourage you to learn more about the setting and time period on your own (it did to me, at least). It has emotional intimacy and moral grayness within its sapphic cast that strengthens the thematic resonance. It has the suspense, foreshadowing and predictability that's expected of a gothic, which is here also interspersed by a couple of delightful twists towards the end that breathe life into the climax and which isn’t altogether so common for a gothic. It also has magnificent and evocative symbolism rooted in the setting (yes, this is a pun). And it certainly has the masterful prose that a reader of gothic fiction will expect.

If you love Daphne du Maurier (who really was ahead of her time in many ways), then you'll also love The Needfire. Exactly as most of Daphne du Maurier's novels, The Needfire serves you unapologetic tragedy striated with stark silver linings.