“I really enjoyed Ravens Gathering. Graeme Cumming captures perfectly life in a close-knit hamlet. When one of their own returns, strange things start to happen and it is the newcomer and outsiders that shoulder the blame, at least at first.
From the insular outlook, mistrust of outsiders and the ongoing friction between locals; everything has an air of authenticity about it. History weighs heavily on all, and it’s only during the second half of the book that you truly begin to understand why.
While the writing style is straightforward, Cumming likes to play tricks on his readers, meaning passages you thought you understood are revealed to have a different meaning later on. If, like me, you enjoy piecing a story together as you read and having your initial expectations confounded, you’ll enjoy Ravens Gathering.”
a review from Amazon.co.uk
“Ravens Gathering by Graeme Cumming is a dark and creepy piece of horror and mystery writing. Setting off with an understated but ever present tension and sense of doom I felt exciting unease from the start, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Just what you want from a horror novel All the while the ravens are gathering, a threat that increases the element of suspense.
A stranger arrives and his presence serves to show us the deep undercurrents in the village, distrust, unease and friction and how the dynamics get in motion soon after.
The plot is complex and twisted, so I will say no more on that matter to avoid spoilers, only that the writing is very intense and creates suspense worthy of a Hitchcock screenplay. This is a gripping and well plotted novel that should gain popularity amongst fans of the genre.”
a review from Goodreads.com
How to become a best seller
It’s true. Graeme has been a bestselling author. To be fair, he doesn’t brag about it and, frankly, hardly anyone noticed. But he says it’s nice to be able to include it on his CV.
More importantly, when he put together a talk exploring the modern world of publishing, it helped to have a title that would grab people’s attention…….
Books to come
Action and intrigue combine with dragons and a troll in Carrion, another novel which breaks genre boundaries. Starting its life as a bedtime story about a group of young friends ready for adventure, the intention had been to follow the traditions of the fantasy quest novel. But, as the focus shifted on to the motives of the villain of the piece, a much darker tale began to unfold. Due out in time for Christmas 2019.
A third novel, Birth Rights, is also in progress, with a first draft completed and a second underway. Heavily influenced by his TV viewing habits as a child, Graeme wanted to create a series of stories about a pair of friends who fight crime together. So Birth Rights introduces Bruce Dempster and Sam Morgan to the world and each other, and is the first of three novels in the Birth, Life and Death trilogy.
From the Blog…
Degrees of Separation
Like many people, I enjoy reading books with recurring characters. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, for example, or Jeffrey Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme. Provided they’re well written, they offer predictability – you know what you’re getting. When I first decided to write...
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Some time back, I wrote about the first time I saw Thin Lizzy when the original headliners were supposed to be Ultravox. It was a year later, 1982, before I finally got to see the band I was supposed to. In 1981, their biggest hit, Vienna, was cheated of a number one...
read moreBook Review: Stone Cold Heart @CazziF
I went to the Harrogate Crime Festival this summer. It was my second time there, though the first had been little more than a recce – a long afternoon in sunshine and mixing with authors, book bloggers and crime fans generally. This year’s visit was slightly more...
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