Women are punished differently from children.”Īlonso’s mother, Mary Hopewell, and father, Don Villarca, had purchased Rawblood from a neighboring family and sought to make it a beautiful home until their happiness was brought down not only by her, but by a family scandal.Īnd then there is the unknown soldier, marching unseen through the bracken of the world, hoping only to return home and put an end to unfinished business: “There are miles between me and Rawblood. At first, she is beaten, but as she becomes a young woman, she feels her foster father’s intense gaze: “There is another look that sits deep in his eye these days. His sister, Meg, grows up in an abusive foster family. I have lived my life always half in shadow. Religious Charles Danforth, Alonso’s friend and former lover, who loses his faith during a visit to Rawblood: “I have seen today… her.

She might feel differently if she learned, as we do, the tragic histories of the many people connected to the Villarcas and the house, interspersed with her own story. But she kills her toys, in the end.”Īt first, Iris believes her father is lying to keep her by his side, and she resents him for it. In trying to convince Iris that she must remain alone and unattached her entire life to protect herself as well as others, he describes the specter’s wishes: “It is as if she would have Rawblood and all of us in it suspended forever, unchanging…Sometimes, I have thought, over the years, that we are merely playthings of a kind. Living in Rawblood, their ancestral estate in Devon, England, Iris and her father, Alonso, are the last remaining Villarcas.Īlonso, after having lost more than one companion to the curse (dubbed “ her” because the deaths are always preceded by the vision of a woman in white with terrifying eyes), is determined that it shall go no further. Not only are they doomed to die young and violently, but they bring the same fate to anyone they choose as friends or lovers.

The Villarca family, around which the novel is centered, is doubly cursed. Catriona Ward’s achingly melancholy and frightening debut novel, The Girl from Rawblood, is a beautifully rendered ghost story that will get your heart thumping - a reminder that things that go bump in the night are not always as mundane as a vase knocked over by the cat. And if you’re an adult who likes a good scare now and again, maybe you miss that feeling. If you’re an adult, it’s likely been a while since you’ve been truly afraid - not anxious or concerned, but knees-knocking, feet-quaking-in-boots afraid.

Rawblood by Catriona Ward