Astercote

Penelope Lively
Piccolo Books

A brother and sister discover that nearby woods not only hide the site of a medieval village but also a well-kept and potentially dangerous secret.

 Peter and Mair Jenkins are new to the village of Charlton Underwood but have found a home there roaming the countryside.  In the woods nearby they make friends with an odd young man with his two large dogs and tame hawk who shows them the secret of the dead town of Astercote.

Coming into this book with no knowledge of what to expect I was kind of thinking it was going to be a lost world or time slip sort of thing but what I actually got was something quite different.  Astercote is a story of beliefs.  Belief in the the past, in heritage, in ideas, in selflessness and selfishness, in protecting ones own and in getting ones own way and at the heart of it all in community and friendship.

It makes for an interesting little read and a very enjoyable one.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

More Haunted Houses

Aidan Chambers
Piccolo Books

I've not read the first of these but I imagine it's a very similar sort of animal.  Here Chambers takes a variety of hauntings - Raynham Hall, Breckles Hall, The London Museum, The Bank of England, Ashley Hall, Birchen Bower and more and with varying degrees of detail sets out to report each.

I've no particular interest in 'true' ghost stories but Chambers writes engagingly and the stories he tells are lively enough to keep things moving and hold my attention.

The two more interesting chapters here deal firstly with the different perspectives on a haunting experienced by those present at a haunting in 1833 as reported through articles and letters printed in the newspaper, the Norfolk Chronicle, and secondly with a short collection of some of the experiences of Violet Tweedale.

A short and enjoyable little selection wrapped up in a lovely cover.