The Secret of Cold Hill

Product Information

Despite the warmth of the sunlight, I felt a sudden chill. I knew at that moment she had seen something uncanny. But I did not want to spook my wife on our very first day in this house. We were both townies, and this was our first move into the countryside. She was already apprehensive about the isolation of the property. The last thing I needed was for her to be unnecessarily scared by a ghost. So I shook my head and told her I had not seen anything. But in truth, I was feeling a little spooked. Peter James, author of the Det. Roy Grace police procedural series, has turned his deft hand to a new genre with this series, with mixed results. The story is very readable, because James is so skilled at writing narrative and dialogue. But the plot felt repetitive, consisting of a series of odd things happening, Jason and Emily talking themselves into believing that nothing strange is happening, and then more odd things happening. I did enjoy how James resolved the storyline. This is a sequel to Peter James' book "The House on Cold Hill". I enjoyed that book so I figured I would like this one too. Now to the story. Slowly odd things begin to happen. Footsteps heard where no one should be walking. Voices talking out of empty space. Disturbing. But not yet scary. Then there are shadows. What is in this house? Jason and Emily learn a little about the area from locals, enough to increase their curiosity. Meanwhile he is working on important art work due before Christmas. Cold Hill House, the huge, crumbling mansion, has been demolished. It’s now being replaced by trendy modern homes with every electrical gizmo there is, including voice-operated gadgets.

This is the 2nd book in the 'House on Cold Hill' series but can easily be read as a standalone but I would definitely recommend reading the other book as well.I think it also made me reconsider my rating of the first book, and makes me want to put that down from a 5* to a 3.5*. This book was far stronger. The characters were much better (the snobby, horrible neighbours were awful people but so funny, I kind of warmed to them!) and in terms of the haunting, it was less of a movie-cliche, and far more realistic of true hauntings. For the first two families to move into their new houses at Cold Hill Park, this is a fresh start. Jason and Emily Danes are thrilled to finally settle in to their family home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s a long-awaited retirement dream. Cold Hill Park appears to be the perfect place to live. You cannot bury evil’ states the spine tingling front cover tagline of bestselling British author Peter James’ brand new novel, The Secret of Cold Hill. Following on from his 2015 release, The House on Cold Hill, which was recently made into a theatre production, the second book in the Cold Hill series is creepy, intense, unpredictable and consuming. I asked her if there was anything I could do about this, and she told me that the apparition was of a deeply disturbed former resident of the house, and that it needed a clergyman to deal with it.

The book is set around Christmas, so if you want lightweight festive fare, laced with James’ dark humour, that won’t give you indigestion, then The Secret of Cold Hill might be worth a punt. But if you’re only familiar with James’ main series, then you might find you’re disappointed with this offering.But it’s not fair to compare James to Herbert, because while there are passing similarities, they both hold up on their own. It’s pretty exciting to see James taking on more traditional horror like this because he’s mostly thought of as a crime author because of his Roy Grace books. The Secret of Cold Hill shows that he’s far more versatile than that.

It's not scary in the slightest. It's about as terrifying as Thomas the Tank Engine, and to be frank, he creates main protagonists so appallingly middle-class that you sort of wish the ghosts would hurry up and kill them. You'll like this house, with what you write,’ the owner told me mischievously on our first viewing. 'We have three ghosts.’ It turned out he was fibbing – the house, we were to discover later, actually had four . . .How are you getting on with your grey lady?’ he said, with a strange, quizzical look that immediately unsettled me. This is a great read with strong characters and an addictive story. There are even touches of humour within the haunting chills. There is one thing that never appears in the estate agent brochures: nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left . . . I’ve been a fan of Peter James for years but it’s hard to believe that the Cold Hill books are written by the same author that brings us the excellent Roy Grace series. The plot itself - a boilerplate ghost story - is fine if you don’t think too hard, but the writing really grated with me and it took a while to figure out why: the dialogue is dreadful. Every spoken interaction sounds like it was written by a chatbot that has never heard an actual human conversation. Random slang in all the wrong places, stilted and repetitive phrasing, and sentence structures that I’ve never heard a real person use when speaking. It’s honestly the weirdest thing, especially when you compare it to James’s other books - and once you spot it, it becomes hugely irritating. Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history, and a new era has begun.

During the Second World War, the house was used to billet Canadian soldiers. After the War, during the second half of the twentieth century, three couples bought it – and all subsequently divorced. We were the third. Was the Grey Lady in any way responsible? All up this really didn’t do anything for me and could see so many ways a lot could have been in the book to really lift it. Would I have enjoyed it more if I’d read the book? I pondered this but realised the pace and plot would not of held me tight anyway. Things start smoothly but both couples sense a feeling of others in their new homes. This only gets worse when one of the locals points out that nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left. I felt a tad cynical about her response – but at the same time, I was now feeling deeply uncomfortable in what should have been the sanctuary of my own home. But there was a vicar I knew who I thought would be able to help, and with whom I had become good friends.

eBook Details

The Secret of Cold Hill is perfect for readers who like spooky rather than creepy in their horror stories. Classic haunted house characteristics appear during the course of the novel, from ghostly apparitions that disappear as soon as they appear, to sudden temperature drops, stomping feet, cursed voices and unexplained potent aromas add to the issues faced by the new residents of Cold Hill Park. I appreciated the insertion of newspaper reports and even gravestone inscriptions included within the narrative. These extra flourishes add further conjecture to the unfolding tale. Artist Jason Danes and his caterer wife Emily think their new house is perfect, even if their only neighbours, Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, are more than a tad strange. But they’re certain more people will be moving onto the Cold Hill Park estate soon, including the family bombing around in a huge American car, cigar smoke trailing in their wake. It’s a shame the locals in the village aren’t keen on newcomers, though.