BOOK REVIEW | SCUTTLER’S COVE | DAVID BARNETT

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

The sea never forgets. The sea never forgives…

Scuttler’s Cove is a working village, nestling in dramatic coastal scenery in Cornwall, where life has gone on uninterrupted for centuries… until this seaside idyll was discovered by the rich.

Now the quaint harbour-front cottages have been snapped up by second-homers and rental companies, and the locals can barely afford to live in their own town.

It is a very different place for Merrin Moon, who left for university at the age of eighteen and never looked back. Now in her thirties, she returns to the Cove for the first time since, after the death of her mother.

She soon discovers that there are forces at play in the village that she could never have imagined. Is someone trying to drive out the second homers? And has their arrival started a chain of events none of them will be able to stop?

For something old and terrible is awakening beneath the town’s hallowed ground. And with it comes a horror that the residents have fought for generations to keep a secret.

A dark and mysterious folk horror of the sea, and a timely exploration of the displacement of our modern moment, with a twist that will leave you reeling.

REVIEW

The old ways are still alive in the Cornish coastal town of Scuttler’s Cove.

Scuttler’s Cove is the second book in what I am calling The Barnettverse - the first being the recently released Withered Hill, and effectively revolves around two women. Merrin Moon and Jen.

After receiving the news that her mother is dead, Merrin packs up her life in London and the relationship that is going nowhere. Returning to Scuttler’s Cove, Merrin finds out that her mother has sold off her estate to some equity fund, and whilst she has left some money to Merrin, she discovers that half of her fortune has just disappeared. 

As Merrin fits back into the life that she left as a teenager, she reestablishes relationships that she left behind. However, she also realises that things are not as it seems at Scuttler’s Cove as she begins to uncover secrets about both her and her mother.

Jen is a career girl who becomes embroiled with a city financier, Justin,  and his upper crust friends. Their relationship leads to a proposal of marriage and a new house built on the vale of Nans Avallen, overlooking Scuttler’s cove. The plan is for her and Justin to live there for the summer in the exclusive development with his friends. 

However, things take an unexpected turn when Jen’s husband is tragically killed in a car crash and she is seriously injured. It falls to her husband’s former friends to pick Jen up and help rebuild her life. 

As Jen and the gang carry on with the plans that they had to move into the housing development that she was going to set up with her husband, old things begin to stir in Scuttler’s Cove.

The two women are drawn together in friendship when Merrin moves into the exclusive development,owned by a local farmer who has had to provide social housing as part of the tenet to develop the land of Nans Avallen. 

Moving the setting to Cornwall, Barnett carefully weaves Cornish folklore into the story to build an ominous plot. Throughout the story Barnett steadily builds the tension, teasing bits of information about Scuttler’s Cove and the lore behind the town. Mixing some scenes of horror reminiscent of the great Guy N. Smith, social commentary about the lack of housing for local inhabitants of rural communities, and old time creepy folk horror, Barnett builds an effective horror story. 

Throughout the story, the plot can seem to be predictable, particularly the ending. However, Barnett performs a magic trick of totally diverting your expectations which was really unexpected.

Whilst some people may find the pacing to be slow at first, stick with it and you will be rewarded with a satisfying slice of horror.