#BlogTour: The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin @FaberBooks @joanna_brl #TheLongShadow

Book Synopsis:

The Long Shadow (1975), Celia Fremlin’s ninth novel, tells a Christmas story with a difference. Imogen Barnicott’s husband – a celebrated, cruel and egocentric professor of Classics – has recently died in a car accident. Now, to the pain of widowhood is added the attentions of an anonymous phone-caller who accuses Imogen of murder and alleges that he can prove it. But can Imogen be certain her husband is truly dead and gone?

The Long Shadow has been republished by Faber & Faber and is available now in ebook and hardback.  The ebook is currently only 99p buy you can purchase a copy of both here.

My Review:

The Long Shadow is a chilling novel of psychological suspense that made my hair stand on end at times.  This is definitely a Christmas book with a difference and not one to pick up if you want a jolly festive book!

The atmosphere is tense from the start with a strange phone call in the middle of the night and house guest who keep inviting themselves to stay for seemingly innocent reasons but who all have a hidden agenda.  The situation that unfolds is even more chilling as it seems very real.  I could well imagine a scenario like the one described with lots of relatives descending on the recently widowed to try and ‘help’.

The author adds some dark humour and some rather asute character observations that are rather cruel at times.  These are something she used to laugh about with her husband and things that she misses discussing with him now he’s died.  The one I most enjoyed was Imogen’s observation that there seems to be a competition among some of the relatives over who is most upset.  This did make me chuckle a few times.

The weird events that happen are very cleverly, casually described so that sometimes I didn’t think much of them and the weirdness of the event didn’t hit me until a few pages later.  This made them have a greater impact on me and made the book more gripping as I wasn’t sure when the next freaky thing would happen.

My only small gripe about this book is that it took me a while to get used to the style but once I got into the book more it wasn’t a problem.

Huge thanks to Joanna from Faber & Faber for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.  If you like classic, chilling psychological suspense novels then you’ll love this book.

About The Author:

Celia Fremlin (1914-2009) was born in Kent.  Her first published novel of suspense was The Hours Before Dawn (1958), which went on to win the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1960.  Over the next thirty five years Fremlin published a further eighteen titles.