Book: Vervain Hollow by Catriona Silvey
Reviewed by Halliday in the Books
Rating: 5/5
Laura and the other survivors of the cult only escaped it because of the fire. When the home they shared burned down, the remaining members scattered. Without the guidance of their leader, Vervain, Laura has been floating directionless in the years since. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she gets a call from her former best friend who had joined with her. Someone returned to the wreckage to see whether Vervain may have survived. No one has come out again. If there’s any chance he’s still alive, then Laura needs to know, and she’s not alone in that. Along with her former best friend and another survivor, they return to the place that changed everything.
It wasn’t only the shared sense of community and purpose that Laura desperately misses. There was a power they were able to harness while living in that strange old house, one that Vervain could bestow upon them. None of them have experienced anything like it before, nor ever will again unless Vervain is still alive. While some are looking for reassurance that he’s gone forever, Laura would do anything and everything to bring him back and feel his power again.
This one has a slow start, as is common in this subgenre. We also have a whole host of characters and a rather unusual structure for a setting. The first quarter of the book is devoted to familiarizing the reader with the place and the people who used to live there. There are unsettling elements through that portion of the book for sure, but any hints of outright horror are still extremely subtle. After that is when the tension begins to gradually build in a creeping horror. By the time you catch on to the entirety of what’s happening, you’re far too invested to stop. It’s the perfect way to tell a cult story.
It’s also a great allegory for addiction or addictive tendencies, which at least one of the cult members deals with. One copes through heavy alcohol use, but she’s not the only one who joined because trauma left her broken with a void to fill. They are all seeking healing for their wounds. What they find instead are bursts of euphoria balanced against a gradual draining of their essence. Anyone who has endured substance dependency will find their experiences hauntingly familiar.
Vervain Hollow does have a slow build to it, but by the halfway point, I did not want to put it down. When I did have to step away from the book for any period of time, it was constantly running through my mind. This will scratch the itch for any lover of Gothic horror who also seeks the paranormal or cult elements in their fiction. I don’t only mean that for readers, either. Truthfully, I will be very surprised if this one doesn’t get picked up for screen adaptation within the next few years. We need more horror like this. Catriona Silvey has written a handful of other books before this one, but this is her first foray into the genre. I’ll be looking forward to seeing what she does next.