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The Cold #2
A Cold Silence
Ben Cassidy promised his mother he would never to return to Darnshaw, the remote village they barely escaped when he was a child. But when his friend, Jessica, kills herself, he feels compelled to investigate.
Jessica was playing a sinister computer game called Acheron, which claims it will give you anything you desire... for a price. As Ben and his friends delve ever deeper into the world of Acheron, good motivations and morality begin to slip, and they find themselves spiralling out of control.
Ben could save them all, but the cost for doing so might be too high to pay... Would you?
Jessica was playing a sinister computer game called Acheron, which claims it will give you anything you desire... for a price. As Ben and his friends delve ever deeper into the world of Acheron, good motivations and morality begin to slip, and they find themselves spiralling out of control.
Ben could save them all, but the cost for doing so might be too high to pay... Would you?
384 pages, Paperback
First published September 3, 2015
5 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Alison Littlewood
121 books170 followersAlison Littlewood was raised in Penistone, South Yorkshire, and went on to attend the University of Northumbria at Newcastle (now Northumbria University). Originally she planned to study graphic design, but “missed the words too much” and switched to a joint English and History degree. She followed a career in marketing before developing her love of writing fiction.
Her first book, A Cold Season (2011), was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club and described as ‘perfect reading for a dark winter’s night.’
Alison's latest novel is The Crow Garden (2017), is a tale of obsession set amidst Victorian asylums and séance rooms.
You can find her living with her partner Fergus in deepest Yorkshire, England, in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls. She loves exploring the hills and dales with her two hugely enthusiastic Dalmatians and has a penchant for books on folklore and weird history, Earl Grey tea and semicolons.
She is on Twitter as @Ali__L
Her first book, A Cold Season (2011), was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club and described as ‘perfect reading for a dark winter’s night.’
Alison's latest novel is The Crow Garden (2017), is a tale of obsession set amidst Victorian asylums and séance rooms.
You can find her living with her partner Fergus in deepest Yorkshire, England, in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls. She loves exploring the hills and dales with her two hugely enthusiastic Dalmatians and has a penchant for books on folklore and weird history, Earl Grey tea and semicolons.
She is on Twitter as @Ali__L
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 2, 2015
I'm grateful to the publisher for letting me have an advance copy of this book.
I think A Cold Silence is best read as a coda to Littlewood's first novel, A Cold Season, which appeared in 2012. If you haven't read the earlier book - which in my view is superb - then go and get it and read it before starting A Cold Silence - and before reading any further in this review because there are, inevitably, spoilers for the earlier book below.
And I will now give you a little space to do that.
If you're still following me - A Cold Season ends with Cass escaping from Darnshaw, driving away from that cold, haunted place with her returned husband Pete and son Ben. She believes she has lost her soul to the sinister Remick, but that she somehow may be able to bargain for it using her unborn child - his child - as some kind of leverage. Remick will, she believes, come back - a day she fears but also looks to with a strange kind of hope.
A Cold Silence answers the dangerous question, "What happened next?". I say dangerous because, when a book ends in as open a way as Cold Season does, there is a risk that any follow-up will disappoint, that it will not chime with how readers expect it to be. And indeed, Cold Silence is a very different kind of book. I think it may divide readers of the earlier story, but that, taking the two together, we do get a much more rounded view of what happened.
The story opens nearly twenty years on. Cass, Ben, and his sister, Gaila, have lived together as a family most of that time, albeit scarred by earlier events, but the children have now moved out. Ben's father, Pete, is absent again from this book. Cass, so active - at least eventually - in the previous book, has retreated into her home, where the consequences of what she did - of what Remick and his coven did - play out. She draws pictures of bleak moorlands and dark churches and insists that there is bad in Gaila: she is less hopeful, more damaged and more introspective than the Cass of Cold Season - which may, I'm afraid, disappoint some readers.
But that has to be the case, doesn't it? There is unfinished business here. Remick never, it seems, came back. Cass battled on, raised her kids, did her best - but nothing has been resolved and this has poisoned relationships, raising questions about the nature of family loyalty, about love and about motivation. (And as we saw at the end of Cold Season, Cass's motivations weren't exactly pure). Much of the book is, one way or the other, a meditation on these questions - so in that respect, too, this book is very different. There is little of the brooding sense of approaching horror that we get in Cold Season (and in Littlewood's subsequent two novels) - although having said that there are some effective scenes early on where Ben, who is the central character here, recalls how Cass would never visit Darnshaw and notes that, when approaching the valley, it was as if winter lurked close even on a summer's day. (Ben is mourning his friend Jessica - one of the characters who appeared as a child in the earlier book - who has killed herself, and he goes back to Darnshaw for the funeral - breaking an old promise to his mother).
Instead, the book signposts early on where the battleground will be: an online game called Archeron which has become notorious for its occult overtones and apparently Satanic aspects. You can ask things of it, but it will name its prices (Jessica's suicide followed immersion in the game). There is a scene in Gaila's London flat where the city is seen through a window, all ready for the taking: all this can be yours...
Archeron itself is a clever device to surface the presence of ancient, brooding evil - the Devil has modernised, come out of the shadows: CS Lewis's Screwtape would I suppose approve - but I have to admit that modern offices and online interaction can lack atmosphere compared to remote moorlands and standing stones, and much of the weight of this book is therefore carried instead by the shifts and compromises between Ben and the other central characters and the gradual revelation of the dynamics of the Cassidy family. It's much more character led, and in that respect a more subtle book (and this is where a reader of the earlier book will be much better prepared to understand what's going on - another reason to see these books as a whole).
The writing is great, there are surprises and shocks and this book still delivers the chills. Like Cold Season, Littlewood has fun dealing with a menace that's rooted in traditional Christianity but using characters who have a very modern ignorance and misunderstanding of the concepts. And we may be being primed for another sequel (please?)
So - a rather different read from the earlier book - still an enthralling and chilling horror story but more cerebral: food for (rather disturbing) thought.
I think A Cold Silence is best read as a coda to Littlewood's first novel, A Cold Season, which appeared in 2012. If you haven't read the earlier book - which in my view is superb - then go and get it and read it before starting A Cold Silence - and before reading any further in this review because there are, inevitably, spoilers for the earlier book below.
And I will now give you a little space to do that.
If you're still following me - A Cold Season ends with Cass escaping from Darnshaw, driving away from that cold, haunted place with her returned husband Pete and son Ben. She believes she has lost her soul to the sinister Remick, but that she somehow may be able to bargain for it using her unborn child - his child - as some kind of leverage. Remick will, she believes, come back - a day she fears but also looks to with a strange kind of hope.
A Cold Silence answers the dangerous question, "What happened next?". I say dangerous because, when a book ends in as open a way as Cold Season does, there is a risk that any follow-up will disappoint, that it will not chime with how readers expect it to be. And indeed, Cold Silence is a very different kind of book. I think it may divide readers of the earlier story, but that, taking the two together, we do get a much more rounded view of what happened.
The story opens nearly twenty years on. Cass, Ben, and his sister, Gaila, have lived together as a family most of that time, albeit scarred by earlier events, but the children have now moved out. Ben's father, Pete, is absent again from this book. Cass, so active - at least eventually - in the previous book, has retreated into her home, where the consequences of what she did - of what Remick and his coven did - play out. She draws pictures of bleak moorlands and dark churches and insists that there is bad in Gaila: she is less hopeful, more damaged and more introspective than the Cass of Cold Season - which may, I'm afraid, disappoint some readers.
But that has to be the case, doesn't it? There is unfinished business here. Remick never, it seems, came back. Cass battled on, raised her kids, did her best - but nothing has been resolved and this has poisoned relationships, raising questions about the nature of family loyalty, about love and about motivation. (And as we saw at the end of Cold Season, Cass's motivations weren't exactly pure). Much of the book is, one way or the other, a meditation on these questions - so in that respect, too, this book is very different. There is little of the brooding sense of approaching horror that we get in Cold Season (and in Littlewood's subsequent two novels) - although having said that there are some effective scenes early on where Ben, who is the central character here, recalls how Cass would never visit Darnshaw and notes that, when approaching the valley, it was as if winter lurked close even on a summer's day. (Ben is mourning his friend Jessica - one of the characters who appeared as a child in the earlier book - who has killed herself, and he goes back to Darnshaw for the funeral - breaking an old promise to his mother).
Instead, the book signposts early on where the battleground will be: an online game called Archeron which has become notorious for its occult overtones and apparently Satanic aspects. You can ask things of it, but it will name its prices (Jessica's suicide followed immersion in the game). There is a scene in Gaila's London flat where the city is seen through a window, all ready for the taking: all this can be yours...
Archeron itself is a clever device to surface the presence of ancient, brooding evil - the Devil has modernised, come out of the shadows: CS Lewis's Screwtape would I suppose approve - but I have to admit that modern offices and online interaction can lack atmosphere compared to remote moorlands and standing stones, and much of the weight of this book is therefore carried instead by the shifts and compromises between Ben and the other central characters and the gradual revelation of the dynamics of the Cassidy family. It's much more character led, and in that respect a more subtle book (and this is where a reader of the earlier book will be much better prepared to understand what's going on - another reason to see these books as a whole).
The writing is great, there are surprises and shocks and this book still delivers the chills. Like Cold Season, Littlewood has fun dealing with a menace that's rooted in traditional Christianity but using characters who have a very modern ignorance and misunderstanding of the concepts. And we may be being primed for another sequel (please?)
So - a rather different read from the earlier book - still an enthralling and chilling horror story but more cerebral: food for (rather disturbing) thought.
January 10, 2023
The heat of the flames is felt by the reader as they are encouraged to keep reading. Different from the style of an unfolding mystery, instead an unpacking of mystery... lol all pun intended.
I didn't like this one as much but still had to finish the story...
I didn't like this one as much but still had to finish the story...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 1, 2018
Repetitive
Unfortunately not as enthralling as her other books, this one seemed rather repetitive and did not to really go anywhere.
Unfortunately not as enthralling as her other books, this one seemed rather repetitive and did not to really go anywhere.
January 31, 2020
Cool and scary
December 1, 2015
A Cold Silence is a horror thriller which is a sequel to A Cold Season, which I have not read. Ben's friend, Jessica, has killed herself and she played a sinister computer game called Acheron. Ben, with his sister Gaila, set out to explore the computer game. Acheron turns out to be a nightmare for the two.
I feel that I might have enjoyed and understood this novel more if I had read A Cold Season first. Nevertheless, it did not preclude me from being captivated by the story as it unfolded. As a result, I can recommend it to others for the suspense and the unusual arena that is the battleground for evil. I would like to thank the publishers for an ebook copy via netgalley for an honest review.
I feel that I might have enjoyed and understood this novel more if I had read A Cold Season first. Nevertheless, it did not preclude me from being captivated by the story as it unfolded. As a result, I can recommend it to others for the suspense and the unusual arena that is the battleground for evil. I would like to thank the publishers for an ebook copy via netgalley for an honest review.
June 26, 2016
Better than A Cold Season, with most of the action taking place in a small space of time, this feels a more refined story than it's predecessor. The premise is a smart one and when it gets going it really grabbed my attention.
However the characters feel less well fleshed out than in A Cold Season, and were it not for the momentum pickiing up this would be a 3 star novel for me. Glad I stuck with it though and I'd be interested to see if there's a 3rd, what path it will take.
However the characters feel less well fleshed out than in A Cold Season, and were it not for the momentum pickiing up this would be a 3 star novel for me. Glad I stuck with it though and I'd be interested to see if there's a 3rd, what path it will take.
December 31, 2015
To me, this is a case of the sequel being better than its predecessor.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews