Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
The Hidden People
The Hidden People | Allison Littlewood
4 posts | 4 read | 5 to read
In 1851, within the grand glass arches of London's Crystal Palace, Albie Mirralls meets his cousin Lizzie for the first--and, as it turns out, last--time. His cousin is from a backward rural village, and Albie expects she will be a simple country girl, but instead he is struck by her inner beauty and by her lovely singing voice, which is beautiful beyond all reckoning. When next he hears of her, many years later, it is to hear news of her death at the hands of her husband, the village shoemaker. Unable to countenance the rumors that surround his younger cousin's murder--apparently, her husband thought she had been replaced by one of the "fair folk" and so burned her alive--Albie becomes obsessed with bringing his young cousin's murderer to justice. With his father's blessing, as well as that of his young wife, Albie heads to the village of Halfoak to investigate his cousin's murder. When he arrives, he finds a community in the grip of superstition, nearly every member of which believes Lizzie's husband acted with the best of intentions and in the service of the village. There, Albie begins to look into Lizzie's death and to search for her murderous husband, who has disappeared. But in a village where the rationalism and rule of science of the Industrial Revolution seem to have found little purchase, the answers to the question of what happened to Lizzie and why prove elusive. And the more he learns, the less sure he is that there aren't mysterious powers at work.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
PirateJenny
The Hidden People | Allison Littlewood
post image
Pickpick

This book was inspired by the tragic case of Bridget Cleary, burned as a changeling in the 1890s (The Burning of Bridget Cleary is an excellent account of this murder.) It questions folk belief vs. reason and what can happen to a person when all around them believes in something far from their own beliefs.

review
srijita
The Hidden People | Allison Littlewood
Bailedbailed

Great

review
AmyLarge
The Hidden People | Allison Littlewood
Panpan

Was it atmospheric? Yes. Was it interesting? Kind of... Did it, in the end, get bogged down in Victorian waffling language, too many apostrophe-equals-a-dropped-h filled sentences and far too many uses of the word 'bucolic'? Yes!!!! It felt like the author was trying to battle 'it's all in their heads' versus 'the supernatural exists' and can't seem to decide herself.... deeply frustrating and could have been half the length. A literary ramble!

blurb
Quercus_USA
The Hidden People | Allison Littlewood
post image

"Those wanting to observe how subtle psychological horror can be, how the deepest fears can be contained in the smallest of actions, and that the gothic novel is still incredibly powerful even in these modern times, this is the book for them." --Starburst Magazine