The creature described here far better conveys the notion of disparate human parts sewn together into a living ragdoll, creating a more nightmarish apparition than the budget-limited design of Hammer. Yet it is the latter that has persisted through so many incarnations. The question of why this should be is not something I intend to consider in a review of the book (although I might archly suggest that…

I’m amazed that many of the events in this book slipped so easily from my memory, as this read-through has scored them there indelibly. The forest, the mountains, the lake – it is the first book I have read for some time that captures such a sense of location, as if I’d been walked through the land by a professional cinematographer. That it achieves this using such uncomplicated, plain words is a…

Reading Constantine’s work is a strange experience. There’s a level of momentum involved. I don’t know whether it’s the flow of her sentences, the way she puts words together, or the fact that I don’t know what’s happening half the time, but it takes me a while to read at a steady pace.