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The Whistling

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The Whistling

By: Rebecca Netley
Narrated by: Lois Chimimba
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE EXETER NOVEL PRIZE

Alone in the world, Elspeth Swansome has taken the position of nanny to a family on the remote Scottish island of Skelthsea.

Her charge, Mary, is a strange child. Distracted and secretive, she hasn't uttered a word since the sudden death of her twin, William - just days after their former nanny disappeared.

With her charge defiantly silent, Elspeth turns to the islanders. But no one will speak of what happened to William.

Just as no one can explain the hypnotic lullabies sung in empty corridors.

Nor the strange dolls that appear in abandoned rooms.

Nor the faint whistling that comes in the night . . .

As winter draws in and passage to the mainland becomes impossible, Elspeth finds herself trapped.

But is this house haunted by the ghosts of the past?

OR THE SECRETS OF THE LIVING..?

Chilling, twisty and emotionally gripping, The Whistling is an atmospheric page-turner with shades of the classics, yet a unique character of its own. Perfect for fans of Susan Hill and Laura Purcell.

© Rebecca Netley 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Ghosts Horror Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Haunted Scary Paranormal Exciting Fiction Highlander

Critic reviews

Assured debut . . . This wonderfully atmospheric read offers both a satisfying puzzle and some genuinely eery moments
If you're looking for a chilling tale as we head towards Halloween, you've found it . . . It's not easy to pull off a genuinely unsettling ghost story, but this evocative mystery succeeds beautifully
Gripping, chilling and very, very satisfying
A perfectly conjured setting and an unfolding mystery that will keep you guessing to the very end . . . Atmospheric and eerie, it will chill you to the bone (Anita Frank, author of The Lost Ones)
A terrific, all-absorbing read. A wonderfully eerie haunted house set-up is given new life by brilliant, atmospheric writing, and by those rare things in any ghost story: real heart and feeling. I loved it! (Gytha Lodge, Sunday Times bestselling author)
While The Whistling is an intricately plotted ghost story, it is also a beautifully poignant study of grief that kept me guessing right to its satisfying end. A must read! (Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora)
Dripping in gothic melodrama, this chilling mystery is the perfect read for a cold winter's night
A genuinely creepy book with a gripping mystery at its heart. For fans of Laura Purcell and gothic historical fiction, this is a must!
If you love haunted house ghost tales that are as psychological as they are supernatural, then you'll love Rebecca Netley's atmospheric debut
A beautifully written and intricate gothic tale with an atmospheric setting
All stars
Most relevant
The narrator is good, but there is a habit of tone-switching between chapters with is completely jarring. Director should have noticed this and prevented the habit of “spooky and quiet” at the end of a chapter before a sudden “bright, smiley and loud” beginning to the next. It’s unfortunate, but I did wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more with another voice reading it.

Narrator is a little hit and miss

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Compelling gothic book which grabbed me from the very start and chilled me to the core. It was a real pleasure.

Fabulous novel

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Firstly I will say that the story is really well written and I think I’d read something else by this author, unfortunately the story itself just didn’t do anything for me. It started off well and I settled in for a slow burn but then nothing really happened. There’s a lot of going to bed, hearing some creaks and whistling and then getting up the next day. That’s basically it. The entire middle section of the book consists of the protagonist going to bed and getting up. Narration was good.

A little bland

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‘At first I thought I had stumbled into Jane Eyre on a Scottish island. No one would tell me anything. And I was afraid. And then we were in part 2 and it all went a bit Turn of the Screw. Everyone started blabbing, apart from Mary who couldn’t speak. And I was afraid. And then we were in part 3 and I got one of those Wuthering Heights fevers. And I was afraid…’

You get my drift… It’s very easy to tease and compare to truly great fiction that has gone before, but perhaps that’s valid when it echoes through a book so loudly, with great clomping footsteps, one starts to question the point of writing it.

Is this a terrible book? No. It’s got some nice twists, but too many ghost story cliches for me. Attics. Basements. Mists. Graveyards. Creaking floorboards…

If you haven’t read / listened to Turn of the Screw just do yourself a favour and go there. Now that’s a haunting tale to you’ll remember.

A twisty if familiar gothic tale

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It's been a while since I read a good, slow-burn horror novel and, although this one took a bit of time to get my teeth into, it was a very enjoyable book when I got there.

The author has a very vivid, descriptive style of writing. You can easily picture the bleak Scottish weather, the spooky old house and the local community lifestyle that keeps the inhabitants in a very shut-in mentality as far as the rest of the world goes.

On the whole, 'The Whistling' is very well written. My main nag about the writing would be that the author tends to repeat descriptions a fair bit. For instance, everyone with a tired look to them has 'eyes that are shadowed by sleepless nights'. It's a gorgeous way of describing tired eyes, but not when everyone has that same descriptions used on them.

The story, one that features a young woman looking to escape her own troubled life by finding solace in employment on a remote Scottish island, feels very complete. I don't just mean from an A to B storyline complete, it feels like the world in which our protagonist finds herself in is a fully-fleshed out place with living, breathing inhabitants. It adds a layer of realism and depth which is essential to gothic horror, at least to my mind.

All characters, both primary and secondary, have plenty about (including a fair bit of mystery) them to make them feel like real people, a real treat for someone who appreciates world building. Everything from the young girl's trauma to the motivation of some of the less pleasant characters all feel genuine and well thought out.

The spooky aspect of it isn't entirely overt and forced down your throat, as is the case with so many horror novels these days. That is the true slow burn aspect of the story. Our heroine begins to experience things she can, and happily does explain away. Things progress, as does her acceptance. It's all masterfully done. I did find the more overt natures of the supernatural elements felt as though they were less in your face because of the slow build up of things. The gradual approach almost made the entirely out of the ordinary occurrences feel more natural.

The narration, for the most part, was excellent. I genuinely only have one mild complaint as far as narration goes and that's that you could sometimes here the narrator had a smile in her voice when talking about things that were less than pleasant. Just felt a tad off-key at times. I'd still give her a solid 9 out of 10 for narration, so only a very small detraction.

On the whole, The Whistling was a great little read leading into the autumn. I look forward to filling the colder months, with their shorter days and looming nights, with more such reads as this

An atmospheric treat

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