The sing-songy manner of the narration killed any suspense that the book may have had, it was too jaunty and upbeat for a book that claims to be horror. The narration didn’t help either, it was as if it was being recorded word by word, the pauses were unnatural and the pacing was distracting. There was no atmosphere and the main characters habit of ‘joking’ when she was supposed to be terrified was off-putting. So much of the story was left unexplained, why did the Holler People stay away from Mouses grandmother, why was she so mean, why did Cockgrave marry her, why wouldn’t she let him sleep? Characters introduced but then added nothing to the story.

A better writer could have had this story singing but in the hands of this author it was flat and uninspiring. There’s more time dedicated to describing the clearing out an old house than on the crux of the story. Folklore, creepy woods, ancient lore, effigies, underground worlds, pale people…and the story barely scratches the surface on any of it. This book is a massive missed opportunity. I don’t think I’ll return to the Kingfisher well and draw from it again, for fear of risking reading the same novel a third time.Awful story, awful narration. Overall, I’ll give it 2 deer skulls out of 5. But to not do that and pretend to have written another distinct story? It rubbed me the wrong way. These two novels were so closely entwined, Kingfisher should have leaned into the similarities and just connected the two. They were written entirely interchangeably, with very similar mannerisms and ways of speaking. I would have preferred if ‘Carrot’ (the young women in The Hollow Places) and ‘Mouse’ (the young women in The Twisted Ones) were, in fact, the same character. The sheer volume of found manuscript begs patience of its reader by the middle of the novel, but once things start going bump in the night at the.

The Green Book is a book within a journal within the novel. But it was such a similar story in some many ways that it felt… lazy. Positive, In a genre where film narratives are full of found footage, The Twisted Ones contains a generous helping of found manuscript. I mean, obviously I liked The Hollow Places enough to immediately seek out another Kingfisher novel to read. That doesn’t necessarily make The Twisted Ones bad. Kingfisher novel I read right before The Twisted Ones, using exactly the same plot summary. The trouble is… I could also explain The Hollow Places, the other T. Eventually, she travels to a fantastical world accompanied by a sassy, fishnet wearing side kick, gets stuck there for a time, and must find a way to return to life in the Real World. She befriends a zany local barista as the mystery at the heart of the magic unfurls. In moving, she is thrown into a world of magical intrigue. In reviewing The Twisted Ones, I would be correct in summarising the plot as such:Ī young women with a silly nickname, recently single, upends her life and moves to a kooky new location to assist a family member in need.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher