Book Synopsis:
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.
Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she’s gone.
In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren’s mother a decade ago.
Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father’s turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it’s no longer clear who she can trust.
In the shadow of the Highland forest, Francine Toon captures the wildness of rural childhood and the intensity of small-town claustrophobia. In a place that can feel like the edge of the word, she unites the chill of the modern gothic with the pulse of a thriller. It is the perfect novel for our haunted times.
Pine is published in ebook and hardback on the 23rd January 2020. You can pre-order your copy using the link below.
My Review:
Pine is a wonderfully different book which manages to combine a few different genres making it a very interesting read.
This book drew me in from the start as the author sets the scene beautifully with her vivid descriptions of the small Highland village which has some interesting inhabitants. The beauty of the area is constrasted nicely with the eerie, almost oppressive forest which seems to hold a lot of mystery. I loved the little details the author has included in this book which just helped me envision everything that was happening even more clearly.
Lauren is a wonderful main character who I felt very sympathetic towards. She’s just starting to like boys and wants to be able to act like the older kids she sees at school. She’s being bullied at school by people who thought her mother was a witch which made me want to give her a huge hug.
Overall I thought this was an enthralling read which was easy to get lost in for hours at a time. The inclusion of witchcraft and some of the Scottish Legends was very interesting and gave the book an eerie feel. I really liked how the book manages to be both frightening but also quite emotional at the same time which has meant I’ve continued to think about it long after I finished reading it.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Antonia from Doubleday for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Francine Toon grew up in Sutherland and Fife, Scotland. Her poetry, written as Francine Elena, has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Best British Poetry 2013 and 2015 anthologies (Salt) and Poetry London, among other places. Pine was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She lives in London and works in publishing. Follow her on Twitter @FrancineElena
Over The Rainbow Blog 
Thanks for the blog tour support Jo x
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