Book set in Derbyshire, Cuckoo by Sophie Draper

Submitted: 25th November 2018

A book set in Derbyshire, Cuckoo by Sophie Draper

Cuckoo, a new and upcoming book set in Derbyshire is a thriller with a dark side. It’s deliciously dark actually. There’s an air of a fairy story gone bad about this book and perfect for the dark winter nights.

Book set in Derbyshire – Cuckoo- Sophie Draper

You might think returning home to your childhood home might be nice. Sad if you go to search through your mother’s things. Worse still if you find something you really wish you hadn’t.

A book set in Derbyshire, Cuckoo by Sophie Draper

A psychological I’m calling this. I wouldn’t call it a thriller although it’s billed as one but that’s no bad thing. This has a black fairytale kind of vibe to it. Not so much Brothers Grimm but rather M. Night Shyamalan .

Set in Derbyshire in a remote farmhouse near Ashbourne. Locations are few and far between but the setting is one of vagueness, fear, isolation and claustrophobia and all the trappings of returning to a family home of torment.

There’s a wicked stepmother or evil Cinderella sister if you will, a remote house in the woods, evil dangers, little people and more…but in the modern day and in a novel which messes with your mind in ways you won’t expect.

The legend which kicked off the whole story for the author is fascinating in itself which she explains in her author note although I do think more could have been made of this in the story itself. The scene setting and fairy stories was slowly built up and them interspersed throughout which sometimes slowed the pacing but then this novel is more about characters and mind games than anything else.

I did think it was clever how Caro is an illustrator and is drawing illustrations which could be graphic windows on what is happening in the novel itself. This world within a world was fascinating. She’d had a difficult life and had been tormented there so no wonder she was a bit unstable. Did she have to drink? I feared it was going into predictable territory then.

But it didn’t – and I cheered the other ingredients of rituals, fear, torment and gothic fairytale overtones. It’s a novel where the journey matters more than the destination as the who dunnit is pretty clear. However it’s fun getting there.

Oh and the title? Clever. Not obvious at first but then all the best fairytales unravel in ways not always obvious at first.