Following her acclaimed debut Little Darlings, Melanie Golding’s newest folkloric suspense is a spine-tingling twist on Celtic mythology.One dark December night, in a small seaside town, a little girl is found abandoned. When her mother finally arrives, authorities release the pair, believing it to be an innocent case of a toddler running off. Gregor, a seemingly single man, is found bludgeoned …
Gregor, a seemingly single man, is found bludgeoned and left for dead in his apartment, but the discovery of children’s toys raises more questions than answers.
Every night, Ruby gazes into Gregor’s apartment, leading to the discovery of his secret family: his unusually silent daughter and his mentally unstable wife, Constance, who insists that she is descended from the mythological Selkies. She begs Ruby to aid in finding the sealskin that Gregor has hidden from her, making it impossible to return to her people.
DS Joanna Harper’s investigation into Gregor’s assault leads her to CCTV footage of the mother-daughter pair from town. Harper realizes she knows the woman almost as well as she knows herself: it’s her estranged daughter, Ruby. No matter the depth of Ruby’s involvement, she knows she will choose her daughter over her career.
Steeped in local legend and exploring the depths of what it means to be a mother, Melanie Golding’s newest novel is “a lyrical and atmospheric folktale for the modern age.” (Bustle, on Little Darlings)
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The Hidden is the second book written by Melanie Golding that I’ve read. Part mystery/thriller part fantasy, her stories are etched from tales about mothers and creatures with dark histories. Just crossing a line that I can relate to, not so much that it’s a world of unknown. The hook is the eerie sense of reality that lurks beneath the surface, calling readers like a mermaid’s siren. Could this really happen today?
Told in a few POVs and time periods, we learn what happened THEN and what’s happening NOW. Our police investigator has a familial connection to one of the women who apparently is involved or connected with the recent attempted murder of a man in an apartment building. As the story unfolds we learn Gregor wasn’t exactly whom he claimed to be… and his hold over Constance can be quite alarming. Ruby wants to protect the couple’s little girl, but she’s got her own family issues keeping her from accepting her own lot in life. How are these people all connected? And what is the seal creature coming out of the sea?
On the plus side, the story is beautiful, ephemeral, almost effervescent. The words sing to readers like Ruby’s violin or the seal creature’s sirens. It flows at a great pace, drawing you in to guess the hidden meanings. On the forehead-wrinkling side, the tale of the seals and the woman who comes from a faraway land is too murky for me to really sink my teeth into as much as I’d like. It’s strong, but I wanted more to overwhelm me. Instead, Constance came across as a bit too needy, and she made some poor decisions. Had I understand what she went through in her prior days, I might’ve been more forgiving and accepting. The good far outweighed any concerns, tho.
Enjoyed the book. Glad to have read it. Will look for more from Golding in future releases.
“Forgiveness wasn’t about the other person…It was about drawing a line under something and moving on.”
A toddler is found wondering around the seaside in a quaint little village with no parent in site. Social services are called and the police arrive just as a frantic mother swoops up the little girl calling her Momma Bee. Explaining that her little one dashed off and being so thankful for them finding her baby girl, mother and child are released from custody…no further questions asked…
It’s Christmas Eve, and DS Joanna Harper is called to the scene of a body found in a bathtub full of water. Thinking this is an accident, most of the officers on call dismiss foul play. But when DS Harper looks closely at the body, the head wound proves not to be an accident…and this is no dead body…the man is still alive…
As DS Harper starts fitting the pieces together of the man found left for dead, she discovers that her estranged daughter may be connected to the crime scene…as well as to the mysterious abandonment of a child found along the seaside village…
WOW! There is a lot, and I mean a lot, going on in this story! Melanie Golding has weaved several points of view around the love between mother and child and how far one is willing to go to protect each other. Toss in the injured man, the folklore of the Selkies, and you’re in for a page turner of an adventure! Enjoyed and would recommend!
**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **
Absolutely gripping! The narration of this audio book was fantastic and top notch. There are parts that break into song and it was so beautifully done! I found myself very enthralled with this book and didn’t want to have to stop listening. Lots of layers keep you on your toes and wondering what will happen next.
I really enjoyed the other audio book by Melanie Golding, Little Darlings. Definitely an author to follow!
Special thanks to #DreamscapeMedia #TheHidden #NetGalley for early access to this audiobook.
I do enjoy reading about all things supernatural, and while there are a lot of stories about werewolves, vampires, and witches, there are not as many about mermaids or selkies, so I get very happy when I find them. And I must say that Melanie Golding did a fantastic job of introducing people to selkies in The Hidden.
Golding doesn’t go much into the folklore of selkies, leaving that to the reader to further research if they desire, but what she does give us is a fantastic folk story made for the modern era mixed with a police procedural, a serial killer, intense family dynamics, and a beautiful style of writing that draws the reader in and makes them realize that magic really is everywhere, it just depends on how much you decide to notice.
I highly recommend The Hidden by Melanie Golding if you enjoy folktales or suspense, and I’m looking forward to reading her first book, Little Darlings, which seems to be about Changelings, human babies that have been swapped with fae babies.
This was a mix of mystery, folklore, and crime fiction and had me captivated until the end. Ruby watches a man through her window at night doing yoga and doesn’t think he notices but when she meets him he invites her in and finds he has a woman and her young daughter living with him. This woman tells her she cannot leave because he has her coat. She is really a selkie and needs to be back in the sea but cannot go until she finds her skin Gregor has hidden. Oh, the twists and turns and when they do escape and Ruby ends up with little Leonie and claims to be her mother the chase is on. But wait there’s more! A dead body brings in the police and Ruby’s mother is the DS in charge and realizes Ruby is part of it and may be in trouble. Now the chase is across the country and hang on to your seat!
An eerie update of ancient Celtic myth. Nicely done.
Requesting this book, getting it, reading it, and finishing it was a whole weird sequence of events. I requested it thinking, “Folklore? Celtic mythology? Selkies? A man who stole a woman’s selkie skin and is hiding it from her to hold her hostage… but she’s mentally unstable so is she really a selkie or just mentally unstable?” And then I got it and started reading it and I exhaled loudly because it’s got a non-linear timeline, multiple POV narratives, and mental illness involved. That means unreliable narrators and this story is going to unfold like a puzzle and fit together in it’s own way in it’s own time. And then I got finished with it and ultimately felt… slightly let down. But not because of the story, because the story is great! But because of the way it was executed in the latter 30% of the book.
Golding weaved a wonderful tale here. Some critics called this a modern folktale, but I disagree completely, mainly because it doesn’t meet the criteria for a folktale. But in the latter 30% of the story the writing got sloppy and the plot wasn’t woven as tightly as it was in the prior 60% of the book. Some readers can only suspend their disbelief so much before they start to crinkle their nose up like they smelled something fishy (pun intended).
That doesn’t mean this isn’t an entertaining, engaging, and seriously cool psychological thriller with a heavy coating of mythology and magical atmosphere. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in the mood for something a little different than your usual psychological thrillers, or if you think you might like a little thriller mixed in with your fantasy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story!. It really intrigued me and I read and kept on reading.till suddenly the book.was finished! . Just like that!!. I don’t want to give much away so I think whoever reads this story will love it as much as I did! It’s a great detective story and great characters that have you rooting for their cause!!. So.well written. It’s been a while since I read a book that I couldn’t put down and thought about when I couldn’t readit!!. It threw up a lot of thoughts about it.
Thanks to Netgalley for the free ARC book for an honest review.
#harpercollins, #melaniegolding
This is Melanie Golding’s second book and The Hidden is another atmospheric thriller. This suspenseful tale begins: a young child is left on the footpath outside a shop; a woman eating a sandwich gets red water falling on her from an overflowing bath with a man in it; and another woman is running late for a meeting. Then Detective Joanna Harper is introduced as the team leader investigating the assault of a man unconscious in hospital. As the story unfolds all these separate events converge to reveal an enthralling four-star whodunnit. With thanks to Crooked Lane Books and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and are made without fear or favour.
Interesting, it was a suspense, with a hint of mythical magical. The MC has issues, irritating and immature at times I had a hard time liking her. The bad person is so << shutter >> The flaws in the characters just didn’t fit well for this reader.
Ruby is estranged from her family. She avoids calls, seeing them, doesn’t even even them know where she lives. Then she isolates herself, taking time away from work, rarely has human interaction at all. One sleepless night she notices her neighbor, fit good looking practicing yoga she sneakily watches. After a while she gets stalkers and manipulates a meeting with him. Unfortunately for her, she’s way out of her league in this field.
Ruby has a sister, a cop. When Ruby gets in trouble her sister risked everything to try to protect her. yes, that is wonderful but she does it in such a way I wanted to scream. She’s a cop, she knows how not to get caught but she just does everything wrong. I slammed the book done more than once with a “Seriously ?!”
There is physical abuse, verbal abuse, child abuse, and more. The bad is really a nasty one, and a smart one. It was so easy to hate this person.
The magical touch was a bit outside the story for me. It was worked into the story but still felt outside of it. I felt like the story would have been better if more time was spent on it or if it was dropped completely.
I liked the story, but it felt like there was too much unbelievable, and stupid actions from characters.
Melanie Golding’s The Hidden is a thriller that has a selkie legend woven thru it.
There are multiple voices in the story, one belonging to Ruby the estranged daughter of Detective Joanna Harper, the second one to Joanna herself, then the voice of the injured man, and an occasional voice of the mother Constance. Then the author also works out ways to screw our minds by introducing the THEN and NOW technique and it all boils down to an engrossing read.
The opening chapter of a toddler abandoned in the harshest winter outside a shop followed up with blood water dripping out of the ceiling, YIKES, that was one hell of a way to hook the reader in, but the pacing becomes a tad slower as the THEN comes into the picture of Ruby’s history with her neighbor and his mentally incompetent wife and their 2 yr old daughter.
As Joanna’s investigation zooms into a crunch when she realizes the presence of her daughter in the unconscious victim’s life, objectivity becomes lost as Joanna struggles to remain as a copper rather than a mother. By weaving the Selkie fairy tale, there’s a sense of unreality to the whole story of Constance and even though excellently done by the author, that knuckle-worthy tension did seem to lose steam at the end. The description of the islands was so beautiful, and the music of the seals played thru the violin, now that is something I wouldn’t mind hearing every day!
But by the end of it all, it was not the thriller that had me thinking about the story but the question raised by the author in her acknowledgment about the choice of a woman in captivity to return to her roots leaving her children to fend for themselves. It is a question that will never have a completely indisputable answer, isn’t it?
Compelling 4 stars
Many thanks to Net Galley, Crooked Lane Books, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. When I first read the synopsis I honestly had no idea it was a folklore type story. It is a mystery/thriller also. That is what attracted me. It is also my first by this author. It won’t be my last.
From the Author’s Note:
Folktales live all around us. If you look hard enough, you can find one in the bones of every story, every bit of gossip, every film you watch, every book you read. The seed of this book sprouted when I read a folktale about a selkie, but the story may well have been waiting there in my mind all along, ready for me to water it so that it could grow into the novel you have just read.
What a novel it is too. This book is actually quite beautiful. Filled with a lot of emotion. A lot of fears and some laughter too. It’s a story that will have you turning the pages to find out what happens next. You won’t see some things coming until they actually happen. It held my attention all the way. When I picked it up I had a hard time putting it back down. The way the lives of the main characters play out is something that will keep you asking questions. Even after the book ends you will wonder… Could that have really happened. Are there really such things as selkies? Just who is Constance and where did she really come from. Or go too.
This book was a pleasure to read. Even the parts that had me on the edge holding my breath. It was worth it. My heart felt for Ruby. For Leonie. For Constance. And for Joanna. At first I even liked Gregor. That was short lived though. This story has some mixed up characters and some very disturbed ones. It’s about a serial killer and about a tale you may or may not believe. I’d like to think it could be true. The folktale that is. It is told from a few POVs so you get the whole story. A lot of action going on. A lot of mind boggling too. So good.
Thank you #NetGalley, #MelanieGolding, #CrookedLaneBooks for this ARC. This is my own true feelings about this book.
5/5 big stars and a very high recommendation. Read, enjoy, have tissues handy for parts.