Jim Hawkes, feeling on the verge of a mental breakdown after the loss of his fiance, escapes his high-pressured London life and retreats to a quiet English village. But the cottage he rents was the site of a mysterious murder and as Jim begins to see and hear strange things, he's not sure if he's really having a mental breakdown, or if someone is trying to send him a message. 

I really enjoyed this paranormal thriller.  I thought the setting of the sleepy English seaside village was perfect for building the suspense and making the cottage a creepy place. I suspected several different characters at various points of the book and didn't predict the ending.

I did think the book was too long and started to feel repetitive at times. I felt the ending may have been rushed given the length of the build-up throughout the book.

Overall, I enjoyed this one and would read more books by this author.

This was such a great read, enjoyed it thoroughly, i was hooked from the first page, great storyline and loads of twists and turns , highly recommend this book x

This is not a bad read, but there was a little too much woo and supernatural for me - not a fault, just a personal preference. It kept my attention to the end, however, and was overall an enjoyable read.

Jim suffers a major tragedy in his life and shortly afterwards resigns from his high powered stressful  job and decides to rent a cottage in a small Devon village.  Perhaps he should’ve chosen somewhere else!  From the start things are weird, seeing and hearing things.  I loved this book, it was creepy, atmospheric with a few shocks thrown into the mix. There was plenty to get your teeth into and I’d definitely read other novels by this author.  The cover was also enticing and I would definitely pick it up for a closer look.

I finished this book only because I had to know who the killer was....With that being said.....it was just too much with ghosts, seances, bodies being consumed by the dead, etc. Not my style but still interesting enough to finish. I rate this book a 2.9

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book!

I loved this book. The atmosphere was everything I wanted it to be. I loved the plot and storyline in the book. I loved the characters in this story. It gave me all the feels I was looking for when I started reading this. I highly recommend this author. I loved the writing. I will be looking for other works in the future from this author.

Enjoyed this book but I wish there had been a few more answers. I guess they are in the next one!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review!

The characters I liked a lot and found the story of the child in the red and gray and her little dog really quite charming.  Jed also a very interesting character. It was written well and easy to read. I would recommend to readers who like this genre!

My thanks to Lesley at Allison And Busby for the blogtour invite and my gifted review copy of 'The Evil Within' which was published in hardcover on March 19th-it's available wherever good books are sold!

This supernatural thrilller keeps you on edge from page 1-Jim has the kind of meeting that we have all been in, the one where you dream of just saying 'I can't do this anymore' and walking out, except he does it. He has had enough, after two years of carefully balancing his sanity following the mysterious death of his fiance.

He rents a cottage in the village of Slyford St James, hoping the quiet surroundings of country life will be a million miles away from the stresses of London . But you never really leave the horrors of the past behind you...

Enter the strange sight of a girl running through the bottom of his garden, a girl who cannot be there. Bumps and noises in the attic escalate into an attempt on Jim's life, is he being haunted or is a very corporeal presence trying to get him out of the cottage?

How much you find this novel scary and chill inducing depends on how much you believe in life after death-the secondary characters, Jed and Emma who are both locals , and psychics, are convinced that the village has somehow drawn Jim to it. And that he has a higher purpose, namely that of trying to solve the impossible death of the child that Jim has seen since moving in...

The suspense and characterisation are great, you totally get the sense of the village and the house, the grounds and surrounding buildings are described so well that you feel you are walking on these steets. The story teases you with details about Jim's fiance, the sudden moving away of the couple who owned the cottage and you are kept on tenterhooks waiting for the big reveals. The story is intriguing and gave me chills, it is a really good piece of escapist fiction which I enjoyed a lot!

This was an easy to read thriller thaylt kept my attention all the way through! Lots of twists and surprises I didn't see coming. Very good, would recommend!

In S.M. Hardy's The Evil Within, this dark thriller will send you goosebumps in every page that would keep you up at night. For Jim Hawkes, he needed a clean slate and to retreat to a sleepy village town. He's still wheeling and dealing with the loss of his fiancé Kat and needed time for his heart to heal. But when he arrived in Slyford St. James, it wasn't the respite he was looking for and expected. He learns from his two newest friends that his cottage has a shady history of sorrow and of neglect. Little did Jim know, that on his first night there, he listened to the voices and the sounds from a ghost haunting the home and later attacking him. This started for him to look deeper and harder to find out more about the cottage and who could've haunted him and harming others in the process. Meanwhile, he finds new love with a woman named Lucy, someone who could mend his broken heart. As they grow closer, they learn more about the evil spirit that's been inhabited and possessed a local resident. The danger's escalated and heightened near him as they race against time to exercise the spirit and rescue Lucy from its evil clutches with a fight to the finish in the end.

4-5 chilling stars!  Looking for a chilling supernatural thriller, which will give you goosebumps down the spine, thrills, and plenty of shocks?  This is your book!  A scary ghostly story, which also makes sure to provide the themes good thrillers do!  Well written, intense, and genuinely scary in parts!  I highly recommend to those who love a well written supernatural story, with a thriller sliced into it!  
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms!

Mystery wrapped in a paranormal setting raised my goosebumps as I kept turning the pages. I love me a good ghost story.

My first book by this author, I loved how the story pulled me into its arms with the supernatural feel to it. Psychics and ghost child added to the chilly atmosphere. The author was quite talented. The prose though slow, kept my interest going. There was this vibe that something was kept hidden from me. It was this which made turn pages faster.

Overall, the story could creep me out where the characters gave the setting a sense of completeness. A great read.

Jim’s fiance has been dead for 2 years but he still hasn’t got over it and feels guilty. After suffering a breakdown he walks out of work and on a whim rents out a cottage in the small town of Slyford.
But strange things happening. Noises in the attic, seeing a young girl in his harden, a dog scratching at the door....It’s just his imagination isn’t it? 
This was a long book but it really kept me immersed and wondering how it would play out. It wasn’t scary, more so intriguing for me. All I can so is that it was paced well but for me, I didn’t like the ending. This though was a book out of my usual genre.
Thank you to Netgalley and the author for a copy to read.

Oooo yeah I liked this one...I forgot how much I love a supernatural thriller.  This is a great book that really builds the tension and I must admit made me a bit goosepimply (if that's even a word!).

It's about a man who, after experiencing a terrible loss, decides to pack his high flying job in and moves to an incredibly quiet and fairly isolated village.  He rents a small cottage and starts to explore his new surroundings with the local pub being the first obvious spot.  There he learns that the cottage he lives in was home to a young family who tragically lost their daughter in a freak accident and so the spooky goings-on begin.  OK so some of it was a little far fetched but I thought it was a great.  Sometimes when you read a book or watch a film its nice to suspend all belief and just enjoy it for what it is.

Would recommend if you love a spooky supernatural thriller with a somewhat strange twist!

This was a fascinating, make your heart race type of book. It is a paranormal mystery that has fantastic character development in a small village where everyone seems to have a secret. There were a few parts that were slow, but the rest of the book made up for it. Highly recommend. 4.5 stars

I was excited to read this book, I always love a good paranormal thriller. It started out promising, even if the initial premise was not at all original; personal trauma followed by a mental breakdown and an escape to a secluded cabin in the woods. However, the longer I read, the more I realized that I was to be severely disappointed. 

Again, a cabin in the woods followed by the untimely death of a loved one is hardly a new concept, so in order to make it succeed, the following story line would need to be mind blowing. Instead, I read a very wordy, British, small town version of the Mr. Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King. All of the suspense and tension fell flat due to the author's overuse of adjectives and her tendency to over explain a scene. She somehow managed to not leave enough to the imagination while also leaving me confused due to a lack of information. It seems that sometimes she got so wrapped up in descriptions that she left out actual, necessary details. I was constantly going back a few pages to see if I had missed something crucial, only to realize it hadn't been explained, or at least not clearly enough. 

None of the personal stories or people were realistic, or relatable; everyone lacked depth. Their "mysterious" stories either weren't worth hiding in the first place or just boring. The "fight scenes" were muddled and hard to follow. Everything, really, was hard to follow. 

This author clearly has talent, but suspense is not her forte.

****Review****



Mystery murder meets haunting.

The dead can’t hurt us right?
Unlike most books I’ve read like this it has just the right amount, it makes for an easy read and I found myself engrossed and guessing until the last chapters. I find the ghost sweet and eerie at the same time but I found myself cheering for Jim o find out the truth and free the poor souls but can he before someone or something tries to kill him and his friends?
I will be following this author and can’t wait to read his other books and future books.
Thank you to Netgalley/S.M. Hardy/ Allison & Busby for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jim Hawkes moves to a small village after the death of his fiancé Kat and he quits his job in financing.  He starts to have little things happening around the cottage that he finds strange.  His new friends Jeb and Emma are understanding to his issues.  When he finds out a little girl died in his cottage and he begins to see her Jim is puzzled why she would show herself to him.
If you like thrillers and mysteries you will not be disappointed. This book is so good I could not put it down. It grabs you and doesn't let you go.

A chilling and gripping story with the right level of creepiness.
Once I started I couldn't put it down and I was fascinated by how the author build the suspense and how the MC faces what's going on.
The author can tell a story that will keeps hooked and the plow flows. The characters are well build and the setting is apparently lovely but full of things that go bumping in the night and mysteries.
The end seems to lead to further adventures and I hope to read soon another story in this series.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This is my review of The Evil Within by S M Hardy. It is her debut paranormal mystery novel in the Dark Devon Mysteries series. It starts in London but ends in Slyford St James, Devon.
Jim Hawkes had been working at a high powered job in London when one day he walked away on the brink of a breakdown. He got a golden handshake as the firm wanted no recourse from him later down the line and plus he hadn’t handled his fiancee’s death too well two years previously. He booked himself a few weeks away in a cottage in a sleepy village called Slyford St James. It was down in the Devonshire countryside, well away from London and old haunts so he could get a well earned rest from everything.
On the first day, the rain is pelting down so he gets soaked taking his luggage from the car to the cottage. Then he can’t open the combination lock on the suitcase! Next day he sees a young girl down at the bottom of the garden and follows her to the back of the churchyard where he lost sight of her. Instead, he climbed a tumbled down section of the wall into the churchyard and met the vicar. He gets invited into the vicarage for a cup of tea and a chat then heads home. When he hears a banging noise from the loft, he is freaked out and decides to head to the pub for a chat with Jed, see what he can find out.
He soon learns about the owners of the cottage and their daughter who had an accident there and unfortunately died. Hence their moving away. Jed says he can speak to the dead along with Emma and they soon become firm friends. Soon, even more strange things start happening but Jim is yet to be convinced that he can speak to the dead as well. He doesn’t like to share all that he has seen incase is new friends think he has lost his marbles. Then even more dangerous things start happening so he writes down what he can remember and lets Jed read it. 
Why can he see the little girl and the vicar but the others can’t? What do they want from him? What has gone on in that cottage? Who was chasing the little girl? Did they mean her harm?
I found the start of this book to be so suspenseful and creepy but felt deflated by the second half. It was a shame otherwise would have been a cracking book.