The Vessel

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As on the ground floor, up here a poorly-lit exhibition of antiquities with no curator is strewn, piled and propped. A jumbled archive of a long life bereft of a librarian”

Fortune, Aidan. "The Ritual by Adam Nevill (book review)". SF Crowsnest . Retrieved 5 October 2014. The author lives in Devon, England. More information about the author and his books is available at: www.adamlgnevill.comI guess reading this book sort of dredged up all of those old wounds that I held deep within me, and helped me to see that adversity can make a stronger, more whole person. It's kind of a weird thing to say about a horror book, but that's what it did for me. I could almost say it changed my life in a way; it certainly opened up my eyes to the possibility of healing and the beginning of understanding myself, and has encouraged me to find out who I really am underneath all the layers of wounding and trauma. So for that, I am grateful. Struggling with money, raising a child alone and fleeing a volatile ex, Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient. Flo Gardner – a disturbed shut-in and invalid. But if Jess can hold this job down, she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin a new life. I can't believe it took me this long to write this review, because I read this ages ago when it first came out. To be honest, I thought I had already reviewed it. Anyway, I've read all of Adam's work, and 99% of it I have really loved. He really knows how to craft a tale that keeps you hooked till the end, and this one is no different. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Steve has released over a dozen novels and novellas as well as a number of collections. He has appeared alongside some of horror’s biggest names within some truly excellent anthologies. The atmospheric writing is great but this wasn’t as scary as I felt it could be. I loved the character of Flo as there were some creepy events but for the most part, this book drags on a bit at times. I don’t mind a good slow burn but I was anxiously awaiting for something, anything to happen during all sorts of different dialogues between Jess, her daughter Izzy, and her husband Tony. Most of these conversations just bored me and took me out of the reading experience.

After an absurdly long fallow period, literary horror is showing signs of a return to commercial success and cultural visibility. As Halloween approaches I have several books on witches that are on my shelves. I never seem to get to them and I do love witch stories. I can really buy into them as there is about a 100 years or so of history with documented trial history and the like. This kind of stuff really happened and there is proof at least from a demented trial system that tried these witches. The story follows Jess, a mother who is struggling for money and bringing up her young daughter, Izzy. You could say she's had a bit of a hard time recently but now she has come across a new, better-paid job, caring for an elderly lady in her home, Narthus House, an old vicarage within a beautiful village. This book was a slow burn but had some creepy parts within the story as well as the character, Jess takes care of Flo and learns how to care for the old woman as she has other things going on then just having dementia. It took awhile for me to get into the story which I think was suppose to be a slow buildup of suspense, but by the time I got past the half way point of the story I was in a state of confusion of what was really going on.You’ll find situations involving bullying in school, spousal abuse, parental abuse, and suicide. Please note the spousal abuse is pretty graphic but nothing too crazy. The other trigger warnings are mentioned but not too descriptive. If any of these trigger you, please don’t read this book. Lots of creepy moments in The Vessel with Adam Nevill's new book! He can write folk horror really well! But nothing comes easy: her new charge shows intense spite despite her near-catatonic state, spitting at and striking Jess almost upon their first meeting. Flo’s once-regal home is an unlit cavern littered with fifty-years’ worth of refuse and disused affects that Jess is forbidden to touch. To make matters worse, her fellow caregiver, a hardscrabble woman named Morag, seems determined to undermine any and all of Jess’s efforts to improve Flo’s treatment and make Nerthus House a more habitable place.

locusmag (24 March 2018). "Dark Fiction in 2017 by Ellen Datlow". Locus Online . Retrieved 2 January 2019. In need of money, Jess is determined to find a better life for herself, away from her abusive former husband, and for her daughter, Izzy, to get her away from bullies at school. As such, Jess accepts a position as a care giver to “a shrunken figure within a wheelchair, Mrs. Florence Gardner.” The frail eighty-nine-year-old invalid suffers from dementia and lives in a huge, rambling manse, Nerthus House, “a dark warren that hasn’t been cleared, let alone tidied. In years.” Flo, in spite of “her rheumy eyes,” can be incredibly fast as Jess learns when she gets too close to the old woman, angering her, and Jess gets slapped and spat upon. Behind Flo’s “emaciated figure,” haggard appearance, and dully staring eyes, however, lies much, much more than appears—something both Jess and Izzy begin to discover much to their dismay. Adam’s work isn’t bad, but he’s also not the best horror writer out there at the moment, although I’m sure he thinks differently. This story is short, but it satisfied the feminist pagan in me, and the ending was heartwarming with a strong message of women supporting women. HOWEVER, it is painfully obvious that he wrote this with one goal in mind: to have it made into a movie. The “scary” parts aren’t subtle, and read like a screenplay, not to mention he tells you a lot, instead of showing you - which in a film would be a throwaway Easter egg for example and serve to add to the tension and atmosphere, but in the form of a novel it’s disappointing. So first off, let me just say this book was too short for it to be as horrifying as it was. But man, was it scary! In refining the tale of supernatural horror to its essence, M.R. James increased the terror, and among his living inheritors is Adam Nevill’– Ramsey Campbell

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Theaker, Stephen. "Winners of the British Fantasy Awards 2013". British Fantasy Society. Archived from the original on 17 February 2022 . Retrieved 4 October 2014. Some creepy odd stuff starts happening and there is something clearly mystical about it. Not overly scary but creepy and because of the quality of the writing you are really drawn into it all and that gives it that vibe that just keeps the story and the overall creepiness in your head - like in the middle of the night and you are just a little to creeped out to go to the needed washroom, lol. Jess gets a solid job, as relief care aide for Flo, an older woman with dementia who spends her days in her wheelchair in her sprawling home. Nevill does a great job of setting up the chessboard before he begins to move the pieces towards the ultimate moments. Throughout, I was rapt, knowing at any moment ‘it’ was going to happen, that we would come upon the incident that threw open the doors and exposed the truths and when it does, the reader will not be disappointed. At first, the position seems untenable, but fortunes appear to turn when Jess is unable to procure a last-minute babysitter and must take Izzy to work with her. Flo takes an immediate and unfathomable liking to the girl, all at once becoming a much more manageable patient when the child is around.