Friday, 2 January 2015

Review: Frozen Charlotte







Frozen Charlotte
Author:
Publication Date: January 5th 2015        
Publisher:  Stripes Publishing
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

We're waiting for you to come and play. Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lilias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died



Here's a few things you need to know about Frozen Charlotte.
1) It's psychologically disturbing.
2) It's creepy as anything.


Do not read it at night, or do, if you want nightmares of dolls coming to life and murdering you in your sleep, like I did. I haven't had that dream since I was eleven and took all the china dolls out of my bedroom because they were giving me dirty looks.
Frozen Charlotte is a thrill ride, and whilst it is Horror, it's also crossing into the Psychological Thriller genre, which I'll gladly say is my favourite, there's just something about them. The tone of the book, the slight off of the characters and their actions that don't add up to the character you think they're playing and starting off with a chilling opening scene, Frozen Charlotte didn't disappoint.

Fast paced, Frozen Charlotte will keep you turning the pages once you get into the story, because once you start, you'll need to know what's actually going on. It'll steer you different directions,  you'll think it's to do with one thing, and then another, and holy sociopath, it'll keep you guessing.

I liked the characters, as weird as some of them were, which is where the off comes into it, t fits with the story. I didn't get anything from our main character, Sophie. There's nothing wrong about her, there wasn't anything I disliked, she was likeable, but she didn't stand out, but got to say it, the girl is determined. The secondary characters were the same too, Cameron and Lilas were confusing characters which adds to the story, but apart from that, I didn't get much from them either.  Except for Piper, she's the stand-out here, and considering her part in the story, there's no doubt why. You won't know what's lies or what's truth. You won't get a grasp on her character before things change again.
Now, the Frozen Charlotte dolls, as creepy and disturbing as they were, I loved reading the background on them, it built the story you needed to understand some of the actions of the characters, and the truth of one of the major twists in the story, and the way they were used.

Frozen Charlotte was just what I needed, it's perfectly strange and balanced with creepy scenes that you shouldn't read at night (really, you shouldn't) and it also tells you why you shouldn't use a Ouija board.

Don't forget to check back on the 16th, I'm hosting a Q&A with Alex Bell!

Rating: 4/5