1920: On the chalk hill above Haltington is carved, in four strokes, a face. It’s been there longer than anyone remembers, tended – almost ritualistically – by the Bone family until the blood line was cut short by the Great War.

Kit Clayton, an artist just back from France, is traumatised after painting masks for men disfigured in battle. In search of calm she fled into the English countryside.

Florence, who had cared for her late mother, comes to Haltington to live with her sister’s widowed husband and her niece Phoebe. Out of place and unwanted, she is startled to see men’s clothes on the line outside the deserted Bone cottage. Hoping for companionship, she finds not a man but Kit – in short hair, men’s shirts, and trousers – and is stirred in ways she cannot name.

As Florence and Kit’s relationship deepens, plagued by the drably malevolent Phoebe, the Haltington Face falls into disrepair, and the dark forces it once pacified begin to stir.

I loved The Binding and came to The Naked Light with high expectations. I was not let down. The reality of life for “surplus women” after the war is rendered with force – family lines dissolved, young wives and mothers left with nothing but grief. The stoic maiden aunt is nowhere to be found. We feel the hopelessness of these women, and the trauma of the men who survived – wounded, disfigured, or outwardly whole, yet shattered. Those who weren’t there can never know.

Into this landscape comes a hungry darkness, probing for entry. Collins balances folk-horror and earthly threads beautifully, weaving them together in ways which amplify both. The book is moving, with moments of joy punctuating Florence and Kit’s fraught journey, and when the horror comes it carries the cold dread of nightmares.

The characterisations are so good. Phoebe is not the stock antagonist she seems but is given a richer form, shaped by her own trauma.

Gripping and poignant, this is a hugely effective, thoroughly enjoyable book—its brilliant conceit lifted by Collins’ pitch-perfect writing, which makes the most of every moment.
Edit Review

A haunting gothic tale of ancient darkness and a love that defies convention in an exquisite love story and a terrifying folk horror. Beautiful and eerie.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐔𝐊, 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐅𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐬