An atmospheric, spine-tingling ghost story with a dark twist… wounded hand and the boy in the burgundy hood – Alice realises why her predecessor might have left the isolated house so soon.
As she peels back the layers of the mystery, the secrets Alice uncovers haunting Bramley’s heart will be dark – darker than she could ever have imagined…
“Turn the screw it does, right up to its terrifyingly dark finale” Caroline Noe
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I had previously read the middlegrade series, The Secret of the Tirthas, by Steve Griffin and loved it. So I was wondering how well he would be able to step into the YA/adult world of novels. His strength is his descriptive passages as he combined the backdrop of Bramley Manor with the playing out of the story. So once again, he easily led me into the story and I allowed it to envelope me. Each room came into clear focus, catching every intricate detail along with bits of its history and clues. The gardens and surrounding grounds were just as detailed. I could almost feel the crispiness of autumn ending and winter nipping in. As I read, I became privy to Alice’s doubts and fears. I saw what she saw… including the ghosts. The ghost parts are descriptively creepy.
The book is really two stories twined together. The ghosts are one story and Alice’s new position as curator of Bramley with the Trust of England is the second. The history of Bramley is very extensive and very, very dark. Darker than I could ever imagine. The author very skillfully and chillingly melded these two stories into one.
The Boy in the Burgundy Hood is a haunting and at times violent story that is well balanced. This is a stand alone book; but like all good authors he left a literary door open for more. And me? I’ll be at the door waiting for the next one…you can count on it!
Book Review by Pauline Reid The Boy In The Burgundy Hood by Steve Griffin.
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What This Book Is About
Alice Deaton had a new job, in a medieval manor house, 700 years old, owned by the Trust of England … she was now …boss…. the property manager…. this is … Bramley. The owners (or-kind-of-not-really-owners).. the S-J’s who are in their 60s, they didn’t have the funds or energy to keep Bramley clean or tidy…. so
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Alice went through the house, stopping and admiring certain aspects of the interior with great detail, until …. welll she thinks she saw a glimpse of a boy, a boy with the burgundy hood … no, she was certain she did…. however she kept going, scanning the different sites of the oldie worldly house, getting aquinted to old pieces of furniture and paintings that reminded her of her mother, until she ended up outside to meet the gardener, George, who has special needs, so Alice had to guess what he was saying … you know how you do? The game….. charades? This all proved too much for Alice … ‘Yes, we’ll get a pen and paper next time,’ she said.
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On we go to finding alot of treasures at Bramley, until she finds the painting … a painting of a woman and a cow….. and then strange things happen with the phone, and then another phone, but this was different, but I’m not going to explain here …. because Steve Grffin, the author, goes into quite a conversational piece, about … this phone-to-be-precise-bloody-cell-phone….. and certain weird scratches on the fireplace.
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We do actually get to meet the S-J’s …. a very odd couple, try hards, and expressions to match, for example, and giving a quote here …. “His eyebrows did that funny thing she’d noticed at the interview, lifting and dropping from left to right like a caterpillar.” …….. ok, did anyone try that, like I did? ….. and then there was the amusement over THE tapestry, what was it …. ahhhhhh, I can’t tell you that, Steve Griffin, the Author, will though.
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We then read about Alice sleeping in her room and there is someone in the room, now this so called girl wasn’t the type of stranger you would want to meet in the dark….. but …. Ghostbusters …. who are you gonna call?
….. So how does Alice handle the ghost …. does she don her proton pack? And wave her Neutrona Wand?
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…. well that’s all a teaser and there is plenty more comming up, when I write this I’m only a quarter way through, so if you want to see where this is leading… I don’t know myself, so I had better get on with it and see whether Alice the ghost buster turns into, Alice in Wonderland.
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What I Thought About This Book
This is not only a ghost story, but a mystery of something hidden that Alice finds herself delving into that involved a secret door, plus alot of art-gallery-paintings … one in particular which I wont mention as I don’t want to spoil the surprise, plus learning how to clean tapestry (which I knew nothing about, which was very facinating) and because of my love of vintage furniture, there is plenty to satisfy my taste and to top it off a holiday in the Lake District and even Roman mythology….. however, in saying all this, THIS-IS-A-DARK-BOOK and nearer the end I had to skip a couple of pages, I’ve learnt in books to bypass things that physically do me harm ….. so-NOT-for-the-faint-hearted …
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Firstly I want to put down here familiar words that take me back to my days when I lived in England.
nosy old parkers
pumps
trainers
a few hundred quid
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New Word Learnt
Stumpery – a garden feature similar to a rockery but made from parts of dead trees (Wikipedia)
Tauroctony. (Wikipedia)
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There were LOL moments in this book, and I absolutely loved Steve’s humour when I spotted this quote …… “Whilst they were still working on the business plan back at headquarters, Fran had made her own list of urgent, very urgent and absolutely-bloody-urgent-so-do-it-now tasks.” ….. another one was …
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“any of the paintings in the dimmest rooms had suffered buckling and draws; quite a few frames had also been ravaged by woodworm (she imagined Bramley as a party house for the little critters – come on over, guys, this is the place to be!)”.
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I felt at the beginning of the book when Steve had us as visitors to this old manor that if I was left alone, I surely would have got lost by now, but Steve is such a good host and narrator, that he introduces us to every aspect of the building that you feel you know the map of the building in your head.
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I loved the breaks in this book, numbered, which I have never seen before, but it gave some sort of order which I enjoyed.
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Star Rating
5 Stars
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Recommendation
This book comes highly recommended by me and would suit anyone who is into Ghost Stories, anyone who likes Roman mythology, anyone who likes mysteries, anyone who likes the older style mansions and what’s in them, anyone who likes vintage furniture, anyone who likes art related articles on paintings and tapestries and anyone who likes humour in their books. Basically this is an all round book that the majority of genres fall into, so would suit a wide range of readers.
This is an original ghost story – a breath of fresh air. I love how the protagonist isn’t scared of ghosts. And I really like that there’s at least one modern ghost despite the beautiful, historical setting of a medieval manor house.
As someone who enjoys snooping around National Trust properties, I adored being taken around Bramley Manor. The place has a lot of history – some of which has come back to bite it in the bum!
Alice lands the job of her dreams – helping ready a property so it can be opened to the public. But what secrets do the ghosts hold? What are they trying to tell her? And how does an ancient Roman sect fit into all this?
This is a gentle ghost story which also manages to build tension, especially near the end.
Not scary but creepy and gripping.
A fab read!