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Wringland
The trap has already been set…
Abbie Parker is just starting her new job as sales negotiator for a prestige housing development in sinister and vaporous Black Fen – rumoured to be the most haunted corner of England. One morning she arrives to find her office door ajar, and a strangely dressed woman waiting inside, intent on laying claim to just one particular building plot.
As the days go by, Abbie has further strange experiences both on the construction site itself and in the surrounding wet-lands. She must cope not only with the unwelcome attentions of a weird local clergyman and the erratic behaviour of her boyfriend Simon, who’s visiting, but also with a hazy sense that she is now somehow in conflict with the vengeful spirit of a woman betrayed over a century earlier.
After the terror of risking her life by befriending the cleric’s disturbed little daughter, Abbie finally enjoys a brief period of happiness with Simon. But can their mere human love and courage prove sufficient – as both are drawn deeper into the profoundest evil?
Set in mysterious fen country, amongst its concealing mists and treacherous tides, Wringland is a chilling and disturbing foray into that twilight world that hovers between reality and nightmare.
Abbie Parker is just starting her new job as sales negotiator for a prestige housing development in sinister and vaporous Black Fen – rumoured to be the most haunted corner of England. One morning she arrives to find her office door ajar, and a strangely dressed woman waiting inside, intent on laying claim to just one particular building plot.
As the days go by, Abbie has further strange experiences both on the construction site itself and in the surrounding wet-lands. She must cope not only with the unwelcome attentions of a weird local clergyman and the erratic behaviour of her boyfriend Simon, who’s visiting, but also with a hazy sense that she is now somehow in conflict with the vengeful spirit of a woman betrayed over a century earlier.
After the terror of risking her life by befriending the cleric’s disturbed little daughter, Abbie finally enjoys a brief period of happiness with Simon. But can their mere human love and courage prove sufficient – as both are drawn deeper into the profoundest evil?
Set in mysterious fen country, amongst its concealing mists and treacherous tides, Wringland is a chilling and disturbing foray into that twilight world that hovers between reality and nightmare.
482 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 6, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 29, 2010
• Wringland by Sally Spedding. Pan Books.
673 pps. 77 chaps. 200,000 words
Powerful, disturbing, intense and engaging, the narrative moves this story at a pace that never falters. Finely drawn characters move, repel, haunt and enmesh the reader in this tale of a young woman and her man as they struggle to understand and attempt to defeat the potent forces stacked against them. Quinn, the sinister but complex tool of evil, controlled by the spirit of the vengeful Martha, embodies a type of wickedness that can reside only in the being of an uncertain man of the cloth. Abbie, essentially open but naïve, provides a wonderful example of the honest thinker caught up in the material world of corrupt sales: a heroine who grows through the experiences she faces.
Sally Spedding’s sense of place is superb and captures the dreary, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Fens with such accuracy that the reader can smell the tide-washed mud, feel the weight of sky and hear the ever-present motion of the water.
This thriller tackles the world of ghosts and the spiritual supernatural with confidence enough to draw in the disbeliever. The very humanity of the characters compels the reader to follow them through their trials to the conclusion. Un-put-downable.
673 pps. 77 chaps. 200,000 words
Powerful, disturbing, intense and engaging, the narrative moves this story at a pace that never falters. Finely drawn characters move, repel, haunt and enmesh the reader in this tale of a young woman and her man as they struggle to understand and attempt to defeat the potent forces stacked against them. Quinn, the sinister but complex tool of evil, controlled by the spirit of the vengeful Martha, embodies a type of wickedness that can reside only in the being of an uncertain man of the cloth. Abbie, essentially open but naïve, provides a wonderful example of the honest thinker caught up in the material world of corrupt sales: a heroine who grows through the experiences she faces.
Sally Spedding’s sense of place is superb and captures the dreary, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Fens with such accuracy that the reader can smell the tide-washed mud, feel the weight of sky and hear the ever-present motion of the water.
This thriller tackles the world of ghosts and the spiritual supernatural with confidence enough to draw in the disbeliever. The very humanity of the characters compels the reader to follow them through their trials to the conclusion. Un-put-downable.
July 2, 2016
As I've long maintained, nobody does creeping, subtle horror like the British. Realistic, flawed but likable characters in Abbie and Simon, a haunting setting, and foreboding atmosphere. Great storytelling all around!
October 23, 2020
Disappointing. The same story could have been told in half the words. I stuck with it because parts of it intrigued me - but I didn't find the end particularly satisfying. Perhaps this genre isn't for me.
April 29, 2018
Excellent Read
Horror/Ghost story. Chilling! Very good read and very hard to put this book down! It is well written story. Thank you! Great to read a really good book.
Horror/Ghost story. Chilling! Very good read and very hard to put this book down! It is well written story. Thank you! Great to read a really good book.
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March 5, 2021Did not enjoy
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews