Isolation reading: Ghost Wall

Ghost Wall
by Sarah Moss

When 17-year-old Silvie head off to the woods somewhere in Northumberland with her brutish father and a group of archeology students, everything starts sliding slowly into darkness, and there's only dread down there. This isn't going to end well.

Because when that father's obsession with folk history that slide slowly, inexorably into folk horror, Silvie can't get away. She can avoid the group's total Bronze-age diet by ducking out to the local supermarket with a sympathetic student, but she keeps getting dragged back to the camp, and almost becomes a willing sacrifice to some pagan need.

Moss' novel isn't long - it's barely 150 pages - but it has long and deep links to ancient history. Silvie's fate becomes more than a matter of minor mass hysteria, it's the continuation of a cultural nightmare that stretches back to the earliest days of Britain, one that is still hiding somewhere in the deep woods.

Whether Silvie will be able to wake up from that nightmare is the main tension throughout the slim story, but some nightmares can appear impossible to escape.