The Lingering

By: SJI Holliday

Narrated by: Julia Barrie, David Monteath

Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Married couple Jack and Ali Gardiner move to a self-sufficient spiritual commune in the English Fens, desperate for fresh start. The local village is known for the witches who once resided there, and Rosalind House, where the commune has been established, is a former psychiatric home, with a disturbing history. 

When Jack and Ali arrive, a chain of unexpected and unexplained events is set off, and it becomes clear that they are not all that they seem. As the residents become twitchy and the villagers suspicious, events from the past come back to haunt them, and someone is seeking retribution....

©2018 SJI Holliday (P)2018 Isis Publishing Ltd

Evocative And Haunting

I loved this book! I adore novels with a creepy edge and The Lingering was such a treat. I listened via audiobook and the narrators did such a great job of bringing the characters to life. The story focuses around three main characters, Ali, her husband Jack and Angela, who all stay in a commune - a former psychiatric home with a very dark past. I adored Angela, with all her theories on the supernatural and funny little quirks. Halfway through the book, the story took a turn - although I won't spoil the surprise for readers here. Just to say that you'll know when you get to it. It was such a great twist to the tale and I raced through the rest of the book. S.J.Holliday is a fantastic writer, she has such a talent for drawing out the darkest emotions in her characters in The Lingering and describes the spooky settings with great poetic flair. The Lingering is evocative and haunting, a truly nerve-tingling read.

Five Darkling Stars

Jack and Ali, in search of a fresh start, arrive at Rosalind House, a self-sufficient, remote, commune in the Fens, housed in an old psychiatric hospital. The hospital has a dark past, which Seaton Dunsmore, head and founder of the community, feels can be overcome by the community living ‘in the light’. There is usually a strict vetting process for anyone wishing to join them, however, it seems Jack and Ali have been fast-tracked. Introduced to their new ‘family’, Ali is instantly wary of a young woman who introduces herself as ‘Fairy’ Angela. Angela, desperate to prove the existence of an afterlife, is active with her EMF monitors and cameras around the old hospital, convinced she’ll soon have something to report in her journal. Angela longs to see a ghost, Ali would rather not keep imagining them. Creepy, with dark corners hiding darker secrets, where madness and cruelty, control and coercion, has, like some of the inhabitants, never left the crumbling walls. Five darkling stars

Chilling

Really enjoyed this!

Genuinely chilling and entirely unpredictable, now I’m off to find more by SJ Holliday!

Fill your bath & read this - I dare you!

A change of genre for me & I enjoyed the experience.
The building and the characters became alive (or is that dead) in a fascinating way.
The back stories nibble away without getting in the way of the current situation.
This is well worth a read and will entice you to read more of SJI Holliday.

Not so sure...

....about this book. I think the story would have been better but I was distracted by the narrator's high pitch voice. I don't think she did the book any favours and certainly didn't sound haunting to me. Wont be listening to it again.

Boring.

Couldn't finish this. Can't relate to any of the characters. It moves incredibly slowly. chapter upon chapter of " She saw a shadow, a door opened on it own".