Hold Your Breath by B.P. Walter
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 16th August 2020
Published: 16th April 2020
★★★ 3 stars
DESCRIPTION:
If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise…
Kitty Marchland has always known that her family aren’t like others. But when her father uproots them to a remote cottage in the woods, she realises that her parents are keeping secrets from her – secrets that could unravel everything.
Years later, Kitty starts to question what really happened out in the forest. When the police revisit a suspicious death, she must examine her most painful memories – and this time, there’s nowhere to hide…
MY REVIEW:
A disturbing and chilling thriller, I don't even know where to start with HOLD YOUR BREATH by B.P. Walter. From the beginning, the reader is immediately immersed within this dark and eerie read.
London, 2020: It all started with a telephone call that Katherine Marchland has been waiting for...and dreading.
"Katherine Marchland? Formerly known as Katherine Carlson? I need you to present yourself at Wickton Close Police Station, Newcastle tomorrow afternoon at 3pm to be interviewed under police caution."
Katherine then finds herself on a train bound for Newcastle, preparing herself to relive one of the most traumatic times of her childhood. She knows why they have called. They've read her book. They've seen the video. They know what she's said. What else is there left to say?
Northumbria, 1987: Kitty Carlson was just 10 years old when her father uproots her, along with her mother, from their home Grays in Essex to travel hundreds of miles to stay in a remote and very secluded cottage in the woods in Northumbria. Kitty's mother isn't well, suffering from paranoid delusions, and would have been best placed in a mental health facility rather than their secondment to the woods. Her father wants to avoid a mental institution but I fear is naively lead by a strange old man man called Father Tobias and his daughter Amanda. The purpose of this little "getaway" is to heal Kitty's mother of her mental affliction. But what happened in this cottage in the woods is, above all, shocking beyond words.
From the moment they arrive, Kitty is encouraged to roam freely about the woods on her own, leaving the adults to their business of healing her mother. Not entirely a people person, Kitty's friends usually consisted on little creatures and insects which she often colonises. But whilst exploring the woods she meets a girl of around her own age named Adah, who appears to have some strange theories about the woods, the stream and the cottage in which Kitty and her family are staying. She calls it "the witch's cottage" on account of the woman who lived there years before apparently a witch. And the stream is cursed - if you break the water's surface you will open yourself up to all kinds of evil. Whether Kitty found her ideas strange or not, I'm not sure, considering she was used to such words coming from her own mother's lips. Nevertheless, Adah appears to be Kitty's first real friend.
As a precocious 10 year old, Kitty does not always does as she is told. So when she is encouraged to remain out in the woods for the day, the adults do not expert her to return to the cottage. But she gets bored or cold or she's hungry. Whatever the case, she generally returns to closed living room doors and the sounds of muted voices coming from beyond them. But on one such time, she heard the screams of her mother that was not her mother and the words she spewed both fascinated and terrified her. Whatever they were doing to "fix" her mother, Kitty wasn't at all sure it was working.
Then one day, Amanda suggests Kitty bring her new friend Adah to tea and sends her off into the woods with the invite. It was to be the day that changed everything. What she saw and heard that day has tormented Kitty ever since...and none of it can ever be undone.
London 2019: Katherine (formerly Kitty) has received a message from her father insisting that she visit. In light of her book she has recently published inspired by the events that took place back then, she isn't at all surprised. After all, they don't come out of it too cleanly. But then, as she has clearly stated, it IS a work of fiction inspired by those events. The book was meant to be cathartic...but what Kitty has discovered is that is has simply opened up a whole new can of worms. And she has no idea how to put the lid back on them.
Kitty's tale is a disturbing one, to say the least. It's no wonder she became a traumatised adult. But at the same time, Kitty's voice as a 10 year old throughout appears to be one that is older than her years a she is incredibly perceptive for her age. And yet, she is a very lonely child. She has no friends and no siblings. No one but a distant father, a delusional mother and her colony of insects.
HOLD YOUR BREATH is told solely through the eyes of Kitty - as a 10 year old in 1987 and then as an adult in 2020. I've said at times she appears older than her years which is often reflected in her sometimes witty narrative...particularly when she has an offbeat thought that she chooses not to voice out loud, yet we are privy to it, makes it all the more amusing. She very definitely has a unique personality which makes her something of a quirky child.
The storyline is unique and atmospheric matching the creepy setting entirely. The whole thing is dark, disturbing and sinister throughout. It is a psychological thriller with several twists that builds with a tension that is palpable. There is a particular scene in the book that is especially cringeworthy involving a pair of rusty secateurs that would bring any man to tears at the mere thought. Even I cringed whilst reading it. However, I felt that the ending didn't really go with the bang I expected...and I found it sorted of meandered somewhere and stopped. Not what I expected considering the pace of the rest of the book.
It is, however, an addictive read. But I will say there are some trigger themes involving mental health, suicide, ritualistic elements, exorcism, rape and extreme language. I wouldn't recommend it to readers who are triggered by these or who are easily offended.
HOLD YOUR BREATH is definitely a haunting tale on many levels. It is atmospheric, it is chilling, it is dark and it is disturbing. It was very fast paced throughout until it neared the end, where it sort of tapered off.
Different and somewhat unforgettable, HOLD YOUR BREATH is not for the faint hearted.
I would like to thank #BPWalter, #NetGalley and #AvonBooksUK for an ARC of #HoldYourBreath in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
B P Walter was born and raised in Essex. After spending his childhood and teenage years reading compulsively, he worked in bookshops then went to the University of Southampton to study Film and English followed by an MA in Film & Cultural Management. He is an alumnus of the Faber Academy and works as the Social Media Coordinator for Waterstones.
Aside from writing, reading and tweeting about books for a living, he can usually be found rearranging his ever-growing book collection (every corner of the house is buried under paperbacks) and Instagramming pictures of the titles he’s currently enjoying.
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