On the 1st November, 1943, the 150 residents of Imber, a village on the Salisbury Plain, were ordered by the Ministry of Defence to vacate their houses – Imber was needed for army training in view of the planned invasion of Continental Europe. Most villagers did not put up a protest – they felt they were doing their part for the war effort and, in any case, they were promised they would get back their homes once hostilities were over. Not that leaving Imber was easy – the village blacksmith of forty years cried his eyes out. Ominously, he would be the first person to die after the evacuation and would return to the village only to be buried there. The war finished but the residents were never allowed to return to Imber which remains, to date, army property, its buildings crumbling due to decades of shelling and neglect.

It is a poignant story and one which has inspired contemporary composer Giya Kancheli’s eerie choral work "Little Imber". Imber is also the setting of Neil Spring’s latest “ghost novel”, The Lost Village. As the author himself admits in the introduction, he has, for plot purposes, changed the date of the evacuation from 1943 to 1914, but he otherwise remains remarkably faithful to the background story, even managing to weave into his plot certain historical details and characters (weeping blacksmith included).

“The Lost Village” is a sequel to “The Ghost Hunters” and, once again, features (a fictionalised version of) real-life ghosthunter Harry Price. When the Army requests Price to investigate some strange apparitions and supernatural goings-on at Imber, he is reluctantly joined by the narrator, Sarah Grey, previously his assistant, lover and, secretly, the mother of his child. They make a strange team – Harry consistently and almost irritatingly sceptical; Sarah, who is possibly psychic herself, more open to the possibility of the existence of a spirit world. But their new assignment will make Price rethink his certainties whilst bringing Sarah face to face with some personal demons.

At around 500 pages, this novel is definitely a slow-burner and, at times, I found myself wishing that the book had gone through some more judicious editing. That said, its length gives the author enough space to build a ghostly atmosphere whilst developing the “human” stories behind the supernatural derring-do. In the last chapters, then, the plot really picks up and becomes decidedly Gothic – apart from the supernatural elements (including a chilling seance scene), there are every Goth’s favourite tropes: crumbling buildings, foggy graveyards, hidden family secrets, madness, and obsession. As well as a concluding action sequence which could grace a Hollywood blockbuster. This could make a fun club read for Halloween!

This is historical fiction based on real events. This is a terrific read as the autumn days get shorter, for Halloween, and for whenever a spooky ghost read is what will fit the bill. An elderly Sarah Grey, once assistant to the famous ghost hunter, Harry Price, hears of the discovery of a spirit child's body in the lost village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain in 1978. This drives her to write about her experiences of Imber village, first in 1914 as a child, when it was taken over for the war effort by the army, and where her father was stationed, destined to never return home and later in 1932, when she and Harry investigate paranormal happenings, horrors, and ghosts. Promises made by the army and the government that the village would be returned fail to materialise making it a highly political and volatile issue.

A significant visit to Brixton Picture Palace to explore the odd goings on there lead to Sarah and Harry meeting coincidentally. Sarah has left Harry's employ and their personal relationship led to consequences that have her feeling haunted and guilty. Vernon Wall, a journalist despised by Harry, is instrumental in getting Sarah and Harry into Imber to help the army in some confidential investigations. There has been the terrible burning of Sergeant Gregory Edwards, and the haunted sounds of the cries of children and women, and more on the site, heard by soldiers which has the army worried. They want nothing to impede the annual visit to Imber church service at St Giles by the grieving and resentful villagers, seen as a crucial PR exercise. There are the ghostly sightings of a young badly nourished boy, also summoned through seances led by a trusted army man, Sidewinder. The ghost boy is the dead son of Oscar Hartwell, a man who lost all 4 of his children. Hartwell used to be the local bigwig of Imber living in the large house, now used as kill house in army training. He is the central focus and leading light for the campaign to return Imber. As Sarah and Harry investigate, they uncover horrors and evidence that practically has arch sceptic Harry Price convinced that the paranormal and ghosts exist. For Sarah, Imber village takes her back to the past and a truer understanding of exactly who she is.

The author does take some liberties but essentially this novel is based on fact. Neil Spring has written an atmospheric ghost story located in a lost village where feelings naturally run high amongst former locals. What I really loved was the character of Sarah Grey, a woman with a strong interest in the supernatural, visited by visions, or possibly hallucinations, in love with Harry Price but knows his marriage forbids a relationship between them. Through the course of the novel Sarah is on a journey that reveals so much about her complicated identity and she is instrumental in arriving at the truth. This is a wonderful and thrilling tale of the ruthless in humanity, ghosts and the paranormal. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

Great story about murder, mystery, the Army and a lost village on Salisbury plains. Although it is described a s a horror it wasn't particularly scary but the story was non stop and was hard to put down.

I'm not really one for horror/ghost stories because I'm quite pathetic and scare really easily! But the premise of this novel just intrigued me, a Lost Village in Wiltshire, taken over by the army in 1914 at the start of WW1 and a promise to the villagers broken when the army decided to keep it.

Not only that but this place; Imber is actually real! While the story itself is fictional I love supernatural realism and I was really intrigued. Intrigue that was well rewarded. I could NOT put this book down. It was so creepy in places but the story was perfect leading me along and having me pulled forward on to the edge of my seat.



The tale was absolutely haunting, the characters believable and well written, the research well done. The twists were fantastic and I did not see them coming, a true mystery of rare calibar. The main character Sarah is wrapped up in all the mysteries without even knowing it herself, all she knows is that people are keeping things from her and that every medium or psychic she meets is warning her against something.



In parts it was also truly scary (or maybe that's just my chicken spirit coming out) but still enjoyable, I found myself desperate to know more and it was well worth it in the end where all questions were answered. I happen to hate books which make the ending a mystery so this was a pleasant surprise for me!

Thank you to Netgalley, Quercus publishing and the author Neil Spring for my ARC of this novel.

Review will be published on the 5th October.

This is a follow-up to Spring's The Ghost Hunters and both Harry Price and Sarah are back: they have a vexed relationship with secrets in their past but it's fine to read this as a standalone as everything is explained here. I found this less entertaining overall than the first book: the set-up is intriguing, with the premise of a 'lost' village that was evacuated by the MOD around the time of WW1 and which now, in 1932, is spooking the soldiers training there. Again, there's a mix of conspiracy (a bit Scooby Doo!) and paranormal, but the whole thing felt very long-winded and drawn-out. I probably would have enjoyed it far more if the 450+ pages had been reduced down to c.300 and there had been less flipping around in time periods. Entertaining rather than spooky, a switch-off read.