A haunting Gothic tale that will live on for years as a classic! But not only was it a Gothic horror, it was also a beautiful love story! Artistically written in a way that unfolds as it progresses, this story will captivate and draw you in.

I love the supernatural, the haunted, the creepy. My favourite films to watch on a rainy day are horror films about the things that go bump in the night. I love playing with the Ouija board, and even though I’m a complete skeptic I won’t allow it in my own house. Despite loving being creeped out, I like to do it from my couch and would probably be the very last person to go into an actual haunted house. So when I got the chance to read The Girl from Rawblood by Catriona Ward, I did a little happy dance in my chair because I was so ready to be scared by a good ol’ gothic novel.
The novel follows the narrative of multiple characters, beginning with Iris Villarca, the daughter of the great, ancient house of Rawblood which stands in the wind-swept moors of Dartmoor. We are then thrown back in time and meet Charles, a doctor, who lived at Rawblood for some time with Alonso, Iris’s father. The narrative shifts back and forth between the two, until we move further and further back, meeting Mary, Iris’s grandmother, and Meg, Iris’s mother, and some other characters that are either connected to Rawblood or to Iris herself. All of their stories are full of dark, sad things. Bad blood, bad moods, love, hurt, death, and mainly a curse, a ghost, which haunts the Villarca family. It is the strongest at Rawblood, and even though it is destructive, it draws the family back to the house even if they try to get away.
Despite the multiple narratives, The Girl from Rawblood is mainly about Iris. It is about how she came to be, how the love and the hurt of the family before her shaped what she was. We get to know her from the age of eleven up until her late teens, experience her pain and her losses. There are many layers to this story, which make it brilliant, but it requires persistence, patience and thought. It is a difficult, long journey that is completely worth it at the end.
The last chapters are crucial to the whole plot, and once the explanation comes, its so quick, so convoluted, that it is easy to miss. This is the brilliance and the fault of The Girl from Rawblood. It is only after I finished and had time to think about it could I really appreciate the scope of it all. It is only after I drudged through parts of the difficult, fragmented narrative, the multiple characters, the many timelines, did I understand what it was all about. In this, Ward had taken a huge risk.
Reading Rawblood was like reading two books. One is written in Iris’s perspective, in awkward present tense, in a strange, disjointed, jumpy way that is hard to follow. It lacked rhythm and flow, feeling more like automatic writing than thoughtful storytelling.
It opened the book, and I was so close to putting the novel down because it was so infuriating and frustrating to read. It seemed that Ward lacked any sort of writing ability. Which is not true at all, because when it moved into the narrative of Charles, the writing became beautiful, well researched, and felt genuinely Victorian. Other characters had a similar voice and they were lovely, haunting, sad and sharp. Ward moved back and forth between these two styles throughout the novel.
There is a reason for this madness, so to speak. Ward has written a very conceptual novel, taking a lot of risk in experimentation, creating a very dark and haunting narrative. I am so torn between loving and hating this novel. Yet, both of those feelings seem appropriate responses, so I can only conclude that Ward has been successful in her intentions.
The Girl from Rawblood is an interesting take on the gothic novel, both modern and historical, which is very pleasant to see. It is perplexing, haunting, and demands another read in order to fully understand and appreciate the story, the concept and the characters. It is truly a book about the supernatural, not truth disguised as the mysterious. Taking the idea of ghosts, ancestry and what haunts us, The Girl from Rawblood deserves to become the next horror staple.

"She comes in the night. Sometimes, in mist or fog. A woman, or once a woman. White, starved...Have you not felt her? Waiting in the shadowed places outside the lamplight, at the bottom of wells. Behind you, in long dark corridors..."

I just explained this book from start to finish in full spoiler-ridden glory to my fiancé. He looked at me afterward, slightly aghast, and said, "The hell did you just read?" Then he started laughing. "How the hell do you review that?"

I'm still struggling to answer both.

This book is a gloriously gothic horror story, reminiscent, at times of the great masters who birthed the genre. The fact that this is the author's debut is slightly mind-blowing. This reads like something you'd expect from a person in their mid-60s, who has been writing for thirty plus years, honing their craft, building their vocabulary, perfecting their prose.

The story itself is unlike anything I've ever read. Set in the early 20th century, on the moors of southwest England, it opens with a young girl named Iris, and her friend Tom. Her only friend. The rest of the locals fear and revile her and her father, who is her sole surviving relative, for they are descendants of not one, but two cursed bloodlines - the Hopewells, and the Villarcas - and hail from an ancestral home with an ominous name: Rawblood.

"Rawblood. Home. It sounds like a battle, like grief, but it's a gentle name. "Raw" from scraw, which means "flowing", for the Dart River that runs nearby. "Blood" from bont, a bridge. Old words. The house by the bridge with the flowing water.

It's a struggle, in the beginning, to understand the superstitious locals, for Iris is but a child, and sees the world through a child's eyes. It's only as she begins to grow that she notices that sometimes the shadows in her house don't move the way you expect them to. That she begins to realize there is more to her father's frenzied protectiveness. At first, she thinks it's protectiveness of her, but as she blossoms into a teenager, she begins to fear that in reality, he's protecting everyone else from...them.

I mentioned above that she's the heir apparent to two cursed bloodlines. Most of her ancestors died young and tragically. Those who survived into old age died alone in their beds with only their cold, shriveled hearts for company, for, you see, the killing curse is triggered by romantic love.

The moment one begins to fall, she appears out of the darkness. And she takes them. Iris' father tells her the tales the day he begins to fear that her friendship with Tom is blossoming into something more. He tells her of all those in their family who have succumbed to the curse. Some see her and go mad, and kill their loved ones before she can. Others simply die of fright. Still more claw their own eyes out to rid themselves of the sight of her.

Iris, in a fit of supreme arrogance, thinks that he is manipulating her. That he's afraid that she'll leave him, and that's why he's been so overprotective. If he cages her in, she can never fly away.

If only that were the case. She learns the error of her arrogance the hard way. Violently and tragically. But this is only the beginning of her story, and to understand how it all ends, we must first go backward, through time, to how it all began.

This book is told in alternating timelines. It's not often that this brand of storytelling works for me, but Ward pulls it off beautifully, weaving together the past and present in such a way as to keep you fully engaged with every narrator. Of which, there are many.

A bit of advice: don't get frustrated when you switch from one storyline to the next. Slow down. Don't rush. Pay attention to each. For every single chapter in here is important. Every character and every scene playing a pivotal role in the tragedy of this family. This book is a slow burn, a longer read, so I suggest saving it for a time when you feel you have plenty of attention and patience to devote to it.

I do want to say that this is so much more than a ghost story. It's a tale of life and love and heartache and grief and death and survival. Every chapter builds upon the one that came before it, every character feels raw and real.

I'm not sure if everyone will love it as much as I did, because it's just so...different that I almost hesitate to suggest it. I guess I'll say that if passages like the following give you a prosegasm:

"Sometimes, I walk through it in my dreams - the interior of my heart. It is like a black land, where black flags hang in tatters and venomous plants grow in sickly clumps and serpents writhe...A deadly night garden, my heart."

Or if you ever thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if The Historian, The Thirteenth Tale, Dracula, and Bleak House got together and had a love child?" then this book is for you.

This book started out a bit slow and took a bit of time to get into. The way the story line jumped from past to present and character to character in the past or present was not only distracting but very confusing. The premise of the story was good but could use some tweaking.

However, the twists at the end were unexpected and actually quite well done.

I don't know if I would read something else by Catriona Ward. She is a talented writer but needs to work more on cohesion and direction in the story line, in my opinion.

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book from NetGalley & SOURCEBOOKS Landmark in order to read and provide a voluntary and honest review, should I choose to do so.

The Girl from Rawblood is an atmospheric read that is creepy at times. As such, it took me longer than usual to get through because I started it just as my husband went away to a conference for a week, and it was not a good choice for late at night when I was alone in the house! Now that I have finally finished it, I can say that I enjoyed it. With its twisting narrative and jumping time periods, it is a book upon which you need to concentrate to keep up with what's happening and who is related to whom, and how. On the whole, I liked this about it, though, especially as the story progressed and further, deeper connections sprung up between the characters. I didn't see the ending coming until fairly late in the narrative, and when Ward did reveal the truth, it gave the book a satisfying conclusion. This is not a read for the fainthearted, but if you enjoy some gore and shocks, and don't mind taking the time to appreciate the slower, winding prose style, you'll doubtless appreciate this tale.

Catriona Ward's The Girl from Rawblood almost defies description as it crosses generations, characters, and locations. It is part haunted house story, part social commentary, part family tragedy. It is all of those things and somehow none of those things. There is plenty to disturb and plenty to sadden. There is even more to make you question your sanity and wonder what is happening. The general sense of unease crystallizes into a sense of horror as the pieces fall into place, leaving you to marvel at what Ms. Ward accomplishes.

Iris Villarca is only one of the characters at the heart of this tragic and compelling story. The story starts and ends with her, but along the way we touch on the lives of her ancestors and how they are each affected by the family curse. Just what the curse is remains nebulous, as are the reasons why the family is cursed, but that does not stop the terror from filling you when "she" makes an appearance. Much as one builds a lasagna, each member of the Villarca family adds another layer of understanding to the mystery of the curse and to Iris' predicament. Theirs is not a happy story by any means, but there are snippets of brightness and love that ease some of the tension and reminds you that to give up on love means to give up on life.

The Girl from Rawblood is not a horror story in the Stephen King sense of the word. There exists violence and danger throughout the story; there is gore as well. Yet, it is not as assertive as King's novels. With few exceptions, the violence is subtle, mostly off-screen and referenced in passing. The gore is less subtle, and there are some scenes involving medical testing that will turn your stomach. However, the sense of overriding fear that some of King's novels cause remains lacking in Ms. Ward's. One can still consider the novel horrifying but not for the reasons one expects when considering a horror novel.

Given all of that, and for many more reasons, it is no wonder that The Girl from Rawblood won the 2016 prize for Best Horror Novel at the British Fantasy Awards last year. Ms. Ward takes the traditional ghost story and turns it on its head with her cross-generational family curse. She also infuses the story with more concrete examples of horror - the kind humans can instill on each other. Combined together it is a novel that entices and horrifies readers, all the while allowing them to marvel at the genius twist on the genre Ms. Ward uses to create a novel that is similar to so many other novels but in the end so completely different from them all.

Every so often, I read a book that is so good, when I've finished it, I find myself wanting to read another book just like it. The experience was that good.

"The Girl From Rawblood" is one of those books.

It's a gothic novel that gave me a Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-like vibe. And please note: it is dark and depressing, just like that novel. If you're looking for happy endings, please find another book.

But I seriously couldn't put this book down once I got into it. I devoured it.

The novel begins with Iris, a young girl whose father doesn't allow her to venture outside the confines of their home, Rawblood, or have friends, since their family is haunted by a strange curse which will kill them if they invite love into their lives. The pair are the last of the Villarca line and the story then begins to tell, from their own perspectives, the story of their family and how the curse, known as "Her," came to be.

As I've said, this novel is very much in the style of classic gothic novels and is a dark, sad tale which will rip your heart out in places. But it's also a tale of the power of love and how much it pervades our lives, no matter how much we try to push it away. Love reaches all of the characters, no matter how hard they push it away.

I think some of the lower reviews were from people expecting a modern-day style novel, and it's not. It's very much classical literature-style. You have to go in knowing that. Also, FYI: This book does contain some scenes where animals are harmed. Not anything over-the-top, but it may give you pause.

I do have some questions about the ending, since it's very symbolic and tries to tie together all the loose ends of the novel, but I can deal with that - most is explained and revealed, there's just some details I need to confirm. Hopefully, once the book comes out I'll be able to read some fan theories.

Overall, I'm really still processing this book. It will stay with you long after you've finished reading it. If you're a gothic horror/romance fan, buy this book, yesterday. I loved it.

I will definitely be buying more from Catriona Ward.

I'm not sure what the author was going for with this book or if it was even edited before this copy was sent out but this was not an enjoyable read.

3.5 stars: somewhere between "I liked it" and "I really liked it." Rounding up for a great ending.

This book has strong elements of horror in it; sensitive readers might want to avoid. (Animal violence included.)

It's really hard to describe this book without spoiling anything. It's a gothic novel about a family cursed with a "white lady," who has haunted their ancestral house for generations. It's about Iris, the last daughter of the house. And it's about her family before her and how the curse affected various members.

I was expecting the book to focus on Iris, and was a tad disappointed when subsequent chapters were about earlier family members instead. However, there's a good reason for this, and at the end of the book, I could appreciate why this approach was taken (even if I found some of the narrators less compelling than Iris).

I absolutely loved some of the very-gothic elements of this book: the decaying house. The mysterious cave. The multigenerational curse. The reason why I didn't give it 5 stars is because I found parts confusing--either I didn't know who was speaking, or events were nebulous enough that it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

However, I loved the ending.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Some families describe their histories as haunted due to wars, famines, and other traumas. But in Catriona Ward’s The Girl from Rawblood, the family is genuinely haunted. The Villarcas of Rawblood have all died young and horribly after getting married. Consequently, Iris, the youngest and last of the Villarcas, has grown up isolated to protect her from the family curse. Even though she follows her father’s rules (most of the time), the curse might be coming for her anyway.

The first part of The Girl from Rawblood switches back and forth between Iris in the early twentieth century and Charles Danforth in the 1880s. It isn’t clear what the connection between the two is until much later, except that they are both tied up with the terrible, shocking history of the Villarcas of Rawblood. (We learn that history in bits and pieces until the second half of the book.) We see Iris’s father, Alonso try to teach her to control her emotions, impressing upon her the danger of becoming friends with outsiders. Meanwhile, Charles works with a much younger Alonso to try and find a cure for the curse, which Alonso suspects might be a kind of congenital madness. It isn’t until much later that we learn of the family ghost, a bald woman with terrible scars who scares people to death, always referred to as her (with italics).

In the second half of the book, Ward takes us back into the family history and the deaths of previous Villarcas and Hopewells (the original owners of Rawblood). If each new generation wasn’t so very stubborn about how they will be the one to break the curse and find happiness in love, marriage, and family, they would have died out long ago. And yet, every time, they try to find a way to avoid her. The first half of the book might lead you to believe that Alonso is right and that there is a hereditary mental illness in the family. The second half, however, makes it clear that the Villarcas are genuinely haunted.

I admit that I found the first half of The Girl from Rawblood a little slow. Iris’ chapters are written in the present tense, which bothered me, and I found Charles a bit priggish. (Also, the vivisection scenes were very hard for me to get through.) But the second half was captivating. The Villarcas go through tragedy after tragedy, but they still keep falling in love and trying to thwart fate. This book is clearly a horror story, and yet, there’s a note of hope and redemption underneath all the of the violence. I also loved the spectacular conclusion of this book. It was worth it for me to keep reading just to get to that ending.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 7 March 2017.

A thank you to Catriona Ward, Sourcebooks, and Netgalley for sharing this copy for an unbiased review.

Ward has an impressive grasp of the metaphor and leads the reader to conclusions instead of blatantly stating what's happened. I appreciate both of those methods.

Ultimately The Girl from Rawblood is a book about love and who belongs together, not just a ghost story. Relegating it to that box would sell it short. It's written like a diamond, facet upon facet, one section shining into the next then another five away. All coming together at the end to produce a lovely gem of a tale. I'd say the last 90% of the book was the most fascinating for me, as that was the Big Reveal. Kudos to Ward for writing what I think should be a popular book club selection this year. It inspires discussion and debate, and comes with a reader's guide, which is always helpful.

Side note: I want to read The Waking of Angantyr! The bedtime story sounds amazing!

Read in one sitting,loved everything about this book,it had a really gothic feel to it and the writing was outstanding..
Highly recommended this to anyone would love to see this on the big screen or on TV,awesome.

This book was a ghost story. The family that resided in the house called Rawblood had a hereditary disease whereby they must avoid strong feeling and excitement and most of all they need to stay away from other people.

I seriously think that this would have been a better story had it been a lot shorter. The author kept going back and forth from past time to present time which sometimes got very confusing. By the time I got to the end of the book, I was really wishing that I had not requested this book. The book took several hours that I could have spent on another book which I think I would have liked much better. As I said, this one became so confusing and unfortunately I kept reading it, hoping I would figure something out and it never happened.

Again, I think this would have been much better as a short story without all the confusing background history stuff thrown in.

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.