Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "kim-newman"

A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An Advent countdown of psychological dread and supernatural terror.

Rust and his mother Angie are preparing for Christmas at their family home Six Elms House.

The first anonymous Christmas card addressed to Rust arrives on December 1st, reminding Angie of the time as a child she stayed up late to watch the annual 'Christmas Ghost Story' on TV - only her memory is of an episode that never aired.

As the sinister cards continue to arrive and other strange occurrences haunt mother and son, they fear the arrival of Christmas will bring with it cataclysmic terror.

'A Christmas Ghost Story' is a novella by Kim Newman, a tale of paranormal phenomena and impending doom, laced with trauma and spite, taking inspiration from weird and gothic fiction and Victorian Christmas horror and ghost stories, a classic feel deposited in a modern setting complete with paraphenomenological flourishes of the social media age.

A slow-burning and atmospheric tale of mystery and dread, the novella brims with an off-kilter strangeness, paranoia and hysteria bubbling beneath the surface, as both characters get sucked into the anxiety and threat posed by the mysterious sender of the cards and malevolent spirits push through the veil. As the days pass, the isolation intensifies, counting down the days to Christmas Eve and a climatic venture into an amalgamation of nightmarish childhood imagination and the stresses and shadows of Christmases past.

Creepy and entertaining, 'A Christmas Ghost Story' is a bittersweet treat for the final days of the year.



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