'Neath the pumpkin patch

Hello!

Today I am reviewing The Black Bothy by Aidan Blackwood, a Scottish Folk Horror novella that overall didn’t stick the landing for me, but absolutely nailed the atmosphere and folk horror aspects.

A year after her sister disappears in the Scottish Highlands, Mara Fraser returns, searching for answers.

But the bothy where Sorcha vanished holds more than memories. It echoes. It watches. And it’s been waiting.

Inside the remote stone shelter of Shena Vall, Mara finds her sister’s journal, a dying stove, and a voice recorder that plays back things she never said.
footprints that appear in perfect circles. Symbols etched in stone. And knocking that begins just after dark.

The land doesn’t want her to leave.
It may not even let her.

“I don’t think I’m alone here.” The recording hissed sharply. “It knocks three times.”

The Black Bothy left me torn. I’d picked up after searching around for a folk horror to read and being both familiar with Bothies and the fact that it was a Scottish folk horror it caught my eye. And on paper the premise is great, and the hook of ‘The land doesn’t want her to leave. It may not even let her,’ absolutely got me; but where I felt it fell down was the execution.

Not with the atmosphere. The Black Bothy absolutely, one hundred percent nails that creeping sense of dread, the loneliness of being out on the hills with nothing but vague signs that other people have passed through, and the fear of strange noises in the night. At the beginning it builds subtly, warnings from the villagers, the hunt for a missing sister, and the records left behind; but it is like a snowball rolling down a snowy hill, and it builds and builds from there. Blackwood nails the art of pulling the threads of tension tighter, until it feels like all the hairs are stood on end at the back of your neck – and I feel as though if someone had knocked when I was reading this one I would have been up and out of my seat, because I was so immersed in that creeping sense of horror, and that feeling of wrongness that sets your teeth on edge.

The use of the land as the foundation of the horror was also well done, and the idea of being out there, and the land and distances shifting from what the maps and compass tells you is terrifying. As is the way Blackwood turned the Bothy which is a sanctuary against the bad bed, and a shelter for the night, into the heart of the horror, was a delicious flip – and the scenes in the Bothy, the noise and the weather outside, and the threats creeping in were my favourite scenes in the whole book. It was a nexus, tying the various storylines together, with clues and memories and whispers trying to reveal them.

‘…before the bothy had another chance to keep her.’

In terms of characters, we don’t really get a full grasp on Mara, or even her sister. In fact, to some extent, I felt there was more character in the people we briefly encounter in the village, or out on the edge of the wild; and I did like how they were used to build up the sense of history and wrongness. The way they could tell the difference between those who had been out on a tiring day of hiking, and those who had ‘returned’; and the warnings and tales that are shared. Sorcha is more of an echo of a person, than a character we get to know, and what details we do know come through Mara’s POV and memories. Mara was the most developed of the characters, and the one we spent most time with, but at the same time, it felt very much like we were following a leaf caught in the current and I never felt a real sense of ‘Her’ as a person which made it quite difficult to be invested in the horror happening to her.

However, where I really struggled with this one was the transitions. Part of it was that the events were warping the characters perception of time and distance, and the land pulling her back, so that starting points and ending points were never quite in the same place. But this felt more chaotic than this, and in a few places, it felt like there was a transition missing and more than once I had to reread the last bit to try and make sense of what had happened; but it felt like a blink and you’d miss it, with nothing to miss, rather than a deliberate part of the story – which is where I felt the execution really fell down. There was also a couple of parts – like the uncle heading out there – and where it reconnected that didn’t add anything to the story for me and ultimately didn’t make sense.

I also felt the ending didn’t really connect with the rest of the story. I felt either we needed to have seen more of that aspect earlier in the book; or that it could have been missed out. It didn’t add anything to it, and it felt misplaced. I feel like a more ambiguous ending with the events in the flat, or maybe still out in the hills and at the Bothy would have been far more effective. It wasn’t necessarily a story that needed to provide all the answers, but it needing an ending that felt more matched to the story.

While The Black Bothy ultimately fell short for me, I am planning on reading the rest of the Archives because the potential was there, and Blackwood did absolutely nail the atmosphere.