The Grief Hole

• Author: K. Warren
• Title: The Grief Hole
• Published: 2016
• Trivia:  (ACT) #AusReadingMonth  @Brona’s Books
• Trivia: #AWW2017  @AusWomenWriters
• Trivia: List of Challenges 2017
• Trivia: Won Best Horror/Paranormal Novel  2016 Aurealis Awards

 

1. Introduction:
2. Theresa helps to place abused clients in a safe house.
3. She can see ghosts around the clients
4. ….and the clients will probably die by their hands.
5. She watches the ghosts...and she sometimes intervenes.
6. Sometimes she does NOT intervene .
7. …but makes small choices, small changes…..hoping  it was enough.
8. After an intervention Theresa
9. ….suffers physical pain, headaches, boils, vomiting.

 

1. Style: Novel’s most frightening elements remain
2. unspoken…they lay beneath the surface.
3. This is similar to the style of Shirley Jackson.
4. Jackson said:
5. “A story must have a surface tension which can be stretched
6. ….but not shattered.” ( pg 483, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life)

 

1. Cover: One of Amber’s sketches is  the book’s cover
2. …what secrets does it contain?
3. I see eyelashes (stripe lines) = sketch is Amber’s vision….what she sees.
4. I stared long and hard….with a little extra distance and I saw
5. Amber’s face!
6. long open door in middle = bridge of her nose
7. left: sweeping lines = eyelashes
8. right: if you look there is a short white band that resembles an underlid of the eye
9. pupils:  use your imagination to visualize the white spaces about lids….as eye pupils
10. black shadows  = are coloring for eye sockets
11. ….and the shadows  take human forms
12. ….  as menacing ghosts tormenting Amber.
13. …and IF YOU TURN THE COVER UPSIDE DOWN
14. …do you see what I see?
15. Fish: small fish can be seen in the ‘open space’ in bridge of the nose
16. …this must be a connection to the sea, beach or drowning.
17. This is just a guess ….!

 

1. Questions: Warren uses the classic technique to
2. …keep the reader gripping the book….a page turner.
3. Warren drops clues…and we MUST know the answers.
4. Warren makes us ask questions…
5. Paranormal skills….is this a family ‘curse’ ? (Amber, Theresa, Prudence)
6. …and the paranormal world
7. Amber’s paintings changed radically a year ago
8. …after Aunt Prudence has contact with Amber.
9. …what happened to Amber?

 

1. Clues: Aunt Prudence uses cryptic messages
2. ….to make Theresa and the reader think and
3. ….try to solve the puzzle.
4.  — Each monster has one way to die
5.  — Not all death can be seen
6.  — I see the victims…you see the monsters…her mother sees the shadows.
7.  — Every killing lays a curse

 

1. Symbol: Balloons....what does Prudence mean to do with them?
2. Aunt Prudence has grey ash….on her cheek….on her balloon
3. …what does this mean?
4. Sol Evictus ( Sun latin…or homonym for ‘soul’ )
5. (Evictus = latin conquered)
6. ….has something to do with the strange things in this book.
7. Art Collection done by Amber….disappears!

 

Conclusion:

1. I am not going to write more about this book
2. ….you must discover it yourself.
3. What I can say is…
4. …this book is very good and the ‘bloody horror’ is NOT
   
5. …over emphasized.
6. Thank goodness from this faint-at-heart reader!
7. The book is good enough to convince me
8. to read more  paranormal/horror fiction!
9. That in itself is an achievement!
10. I never gave this genre a chance.
    
11. Kaaron Warren  has a ‘position’ in paranormal/horror writing world.
12. But I must admit Shirley Jackson still has  a ‘presence’.
13. Jackson is still queen of ‘shivers down your spine’
14. Kaaron Warren won Best Novella Shirley Jackson Awards 2012
15. …she is definitely a rising star!

 

Last thoughts:

1. I’m not very much into junior fiction or YA or paranormal...but I just finished
2. The Grief Hole (K. Warren) and am tempted to read more.
3. At the moment I’m starting (…really going out of my comfort zone)
4. Controlling the Elements (The Manipulator Series Book 1) by N.R. Spratlin.
5. What does this book have that sends its readers into list of superlatives and ‘wow’s’?
6. I aim to find out!
7. #TakeAChance