Book Review: The Witching Hour
Author: Syd Moore
Publisher: Avon 2024
(Originally published in 2011)
Genre: Adult Fiction
Pages: 356
Date Read: May ‘26
Main Characters:
Sarah Grey (A widowed teacher and mum to Alfie)
Sharon Casey (Sarah’s wealthy friend who has been friends with Corinne for years)
Corinne (Sarah’s stylish friend and fellow mum who works in the local government)
Andrew McWhittard (Sarah’s boss whom she finds arrogant in the extreme)
Dr Cook (A well-known local doctor)
Sarah Grey (Local historical witch whom the local pub is named after)
Reverend Robert Eden (The local vicar in the 1800s)
Festus Hunter (The local doctor in the 1800s)
Blurb:
Two centuries separate them. One house will bring them together… After relocating to a costal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But following an inadvertent séance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions. She tries to explain them away. But Alfie sees them too and Sarah believes that they have become the targets of a haunting attack. Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th century witch, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was thought to have been evil incarnate. And when a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing is as it seems. Not even the ghost who haunts her very home…
My review:
I was rather glad to get through this book. It had sat on my shelf waiting to be read for months and I’d hesitated about picking it up due to its earie cover and blurb. I do like earie books, but I just wasn’t in the mood for them at the time and I thought that the book was going to be much more gruesome (Blame my very visual imagination) than it was. That said, the book does contain its fair amount of murder both past and present. Spoiler alert: not all of the main characters make it to the end alive!
The thing that made the book most interesting for me was the fact that despite the ending actually being quite obvious all along, the author, Syd Moore, manages to weave in so many loose ends (They do get tied up at the end) that there are several plausible possible endings. As a reader you find yourself second guessing what is going to happen and reading back over previous sections in case you have missed anything. The breadcrumbs are rife throughout. The story includes flashbacks to the past and old letters and diary extracts that masterfully weave in life from the 1800s to that of the modern day. There is romance tied into the story along with myths, legends and a few gory details. The book contains it all!
I hesitated between giving the book a rating of 3.5 or 4. The ending was a little bit fast paced compared to the rest of the book. In some ways this was good as to was mimicking what was happening in the main character’s actual life, but I worried about how abruptly everything seemed to come together. However, it did make for a good read. There wasn’t too much gore or too much romantic detail so much as to say that there was no sexually explicit content. I just questioned if the book was trying to pack too much in at times and whether the book could have benefitted from the author slowing down and adding in a bit more detail at times.
At the end, it is explained that the book is loosely based on a real-life character called Sarah Moore. The story is certainly very intriguing and gives a good insight into how women ,particularly those on the fringes of society, were treated back in history. I liked the way that the author keeps you guessing as to what exactly happened to Sarah Grey, I just would have liked a little more description along the way. I would still recommend this book to people who enjoy a good murder mystery.
Star rating: 4
