Mrs. McGilvery

by Colin Gibson

Eddie's got a problem, someone's eating his friends...It's 1962 and Mrs McGilvery is stalking and eating children in the squalid passageways of the Plough Street slums. Nine-year-old Eddie loses two of his friends to her in quick succession, but adults refuse to believe the children's claims that a child-eating hag is responsible for the savage deaths. To make matters worse, Eddie's vain attempts at defying McGilvery to save his friends have only angered the predator into singling him out to be the victim of a cat-and-mouse terror campaign.Haunted and desperate, Eddie forges a friendship with Elaine, a girl no older than he but already burdened with the responsibility of looking after her three younger siblings and her feeble-minded grandmother. When Elaine is earmarked as the hag's next victim, Eddie is thrust into a desperate race against time to foil their seemingly invincible enemy and keep Elaine's fragile family together. But Mrs McGilvery's reign of terror threatens to endure in ways that Eddie can't begin to imagine.The pain and tragic comedy of growing up, friendship in adversity and an insight into the true nature of 'imaginary' friends, 'Mrs McGilvery' is a Gothic tale of suspense, mystery and imagination from the inner city slums of 60's Britain.

Genres: Horror

205 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 26, 2011

Reviews

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and unique book. The story is relatively original and was told very well from the viewpoint of a 9-year old boy living in a housing estate in the 1960's. I was thoroughly entertained and my attention was firmly held from the first page to the last. Without any spoilers, I also entirely approve of the ending which, whilst not a complete surprise, was entirely fitting and left me feeling content that the story had been properly concluded.

I would definitely recommend this book to younger readers or adults as a lighter alternative to the usual thriller.

The only drawback I found sadly that the Kindle edition did, as can be found quite frequently in many Kindle editions, have quite a few grammatical and spelling errors, which I did find annoying and detracted minutely from my thorough enjoyment of this book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure if I would like this book or not but it was on my to-be-read list on my kindle so I thought I would have a go and ended up completing it in an evening. It described 1960’s England well (from what I have been told by people who were around at that time), and how kids spent all day outside during the holidays entertaining themselves.

There were some genuinely scary moments and I went to bed listening for people climbing up the drainpipe outside my bedroom window. It main downfall was the ending. I simply didn’t like it, and I felt it didn’t fit with the rest of the story, coming from nowhere. I expected something a lot more supernatural than it was which was quite a disappointment. The final showdown was over far too quickly and could have been drawn out a lot more, with a lot more horror and suspense added in, as there was through the rest of the story.

[Crookshanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colin Gibson's debut novel Mrs McGilvery is a riveting gothic horror. If it had been set in Maine USA I could easily have mistaken it for an early Stephen King novel.

Mrs McGilvery is set in a 1960's UK inner-city slum and is centred around nine year old Eddie and his gang of friends. Their lives are unimaginably changed when they encounter Mrs McGilvery, a horrifying woman who feeds on children and is invisible to adults. This suspenseful horror story chronicles Eddie's fight for his own and his friends survival.

The story is gripping and surprising to the last page. The kindle edition is both well formatted and edited and my only disappointment was that this is currently the only novel by this author as I would have immediately tried another novel simply on the standard of this book.

[Bungo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was slightly confused with this book - is it aimed at children / young adults? It doesn't seem to sit quite right in either the children or adult side Anyway, I got through it but unfortunately on the Kindle edition I had, there were many annoying typos which spoilt the reading flow. The twist near the end was definitely unexpected but was it really necessary? And the actual ending I did quite like (apart from the gender change aspect) although there were a couple of loose ends - the "her" Dolly refers to (presumably her sister? this wasn't really explained at all) and Byger Firth's role is tiny and also pretty superfluous. It keeps up a decent pace and harks back to a 60s childhood in a poor area very evocatively but great writing, it ain't.

[L.K. Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping, exciting and creepy tale. I could really feel for Eddie as he found himself trapped in such a desperate situation but unable to get help from his parents- I shared his frustration with being "just a kid, with no real control over what I did and where I went", whose parents thought he was just being a nuisance while he was battling with forces of evil!

I liked how this book was creepy, scary and atmospheric but not so much so as to be disturbing or unsettling, which I wouldn't have enjoyed, and I found the contrast between normal everyday life and the sudden nightmarish appearances of Mrs McGilvery really effective. I think had I read this as a kid, it would probably have given me nightmares!

[Oolookitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nicely creepy tale about a group of friends confronting a truly scary villain, who steals and kills children. Very frightening until the somewhat rushed and unsatisfying ending, which I felt was a bit of a letdown. However, very well written and truly scary. Mrs McGilvery's appearances on the street will freak you out; if I'd read this as a kid I'm sure it would have given me nightmares (which, to me, is high praise.)

[Lynne (Tigger's Mum) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, I thought the descriptions of the children and their environment was exactly as I remembered life as a child about the same time, the plot was very gripping and a really good story.

[Jennifer]

Not read yet.
This is a note to self, and NOT a review:

Sounds interesting, lady serial killer, baba yaga, modern(ish) 1960s, old fashioned witch sorta thingy - murder with a fairytale twist?

"As suggested by Sam Purplepower Kay"

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this.It's a sort of grim (sic) urban fairytale, set in the slums of Birmingham in the 1960s.