{"id":5922,"date":"2025-03-03T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/?p=5922"},"modified":"2025-03-03T11:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T11:30:15","slug":"david-barnett-withered-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/03\/david-barnett-withered-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"David Barnett: Withered Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Withered Hill<\/em> (2024) is the first foray into folk horror for David Barnett, having previously written, among other things, romantic comedies. One could wryly say this novel, drawing slightly on that genre, is where Bridget Jones has an appointment to keep with the Wicker Man. But beneath that fun comparison, is a surprisingly tightly-plotted book that delivers a multi-strand story with aplomb and keeps the reader engaged throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Folk Horror, as a subgenre, is typically where ancient customs cling to the rural landscape; where an isolated outsider falls into the nightmare of superstitious tradition. The first chapter strays from that, opening in London on a boozy last bash with the girls. The chapter\u2019s curious subtitles of \u2018Outside\u2019 and \u2018Days to Withered Hill: 30\u2019 suggest we have time to observe our outsider, thirty-two-year-old Sophie Wickham, the last woman standing from a group of settled-down friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as we\u2019ve gotten to know Sophie, we\u2019re already in Withered Hill. 357 days in! Here, in this strange woodland village somewhere in Lancashire, Sophie is told she can leave, a sentiment that chimes with the book\u2019s opening sentence (\u201cEveryone leaves eventually.\u201d) \u2014 quite the curveball. And no sooner have we gotten used to this Sophie, the narrative switches timeline again to Sophie\u2019s first day in the village, arriving naked and confused, guided in by residents wearing masks of pigs and hares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once settled into these changing timelines, the story becomes a delightful and suspenseful pagan braid, each strand overlapping the other in service to the whole. The mystery becomes not just how will Sophie get to Withered Hill, but how she will adapt to it once there, and how she will endeavour to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no denying that Withered Hill<\/em> leans heavily into its plot-driven structure, offering a fast-paced thriller rather than any deeper journey. The prose is tight, functional, and streamlined, serving its suspenseful mode very well. The narrative is continually raising questions while the drip feed of what\u2019s actually going on reveals nothing until it’s prudent to do so. All rather well done I think, given the three narrative strands\u2019 potential to reveal earlier details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its heart the story is environmental, with the people of Withered Hill dismissive of those outside its influence. There, they follow the seasons in the old ways in service of a folkloric entity known as Owd Hob. In truth it often feels more folk fantasy than folk horror, but there\u2019s definitely a few scenes that belong in the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnett\u2019s story is highly propulsive, for those willing to go along with it. There are times when certain elements – especially in the chicklit to conspiracy sections – where the plotting feels too visible and the characters too bare-boned in service of the plot. And other times in Withered Hill where the unhelpful villagers surrounding Sophie can get a bit repetitive in their unwillingness to directly assist. But overall it\u2019s a dark popcorn, compulsively readable, mysterious, and leaves you craving more when it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Withered Hill (2024) is the first foray into folk horror for David Barnett, having previously written, among other things, romantic comedies. One could wryly say this novel, drawing slightly on that genre, is where Bridget Jones has an appointment to keep with the Wicker Man. But beneath that fun comparison, is a surprisingly tightly-plotted book that Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[342],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barnett-david"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61oyzYLTsbL-2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pon-1xw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5937,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/5937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}