I fell in love with this book, slowly and then all at once.

The setting, the writing style (so flowy, hell, even the chapter names rhyme), the characters, the mythology...

Kira is on holiday with her family and all is well...except it isn't. Her sister Romy goes missing (twice), so naturally, Kira teams up with the adorably funny Callum to find her. That doesn't go as planned. Where it does go, however, is definitely not what I expected.

The spookiness is perfect till around 30 something %, after that it gets a bit slow but picks right back up near half of the book and oh boy, it delivers. It delivers strong. At that point I honestly couldn't put it down. It was sooooo good.

The people and the creatures Kira and Callum meet on the way are proper fairytale material and I'm definitely going to look some of those things up.

And the ending, LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT SHALL WE? What a cruel way to leave the reader hanging, I love it. I was about ready to throw my phone away when I got to the acknowledgements and saw it was part of a trilogy. PHEW, PHONE SAVED. I'll eagerly be awaiting the continuation of this magical story.

So why four stars and not five?

The previously mentioned slowness and some scenes could've done with a little less description. Almost perfect but not quite.

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

This book 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.

The first chapter is creepy and ethereal, setting up the horror fantasy Whiteland by Rosie Cranie-Higgs to be a haunting story with a chilly aesthetic. Unfortunately, what ended up happening was not haunting or even spooky.

Described as being a mix between The Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell, Whiteland -insofar as I could surmise in the first ten chapters- is nothing like these cult classics. The first chapter, in which we meet sister Romy, does well to set a tone. The writing of Rosie Cranie-Higgs is fluid, Romy's character comes across as troubled, and the cold of the snowy Swiss Mountains penetrates the reader.

In chapter 2, things derail, and the fluidity of Cranie-Higgs' writing becomes not only stilted but downright confusing. Here we meet Kira, the seemingly more sane sister to Romy, and a woman named Anna. It turns out that Anna is their mother, though the way it's currently written that doesn't become evident for another two paragraphs. The confusion between who is feeling what, and who's habits are who's starts there.

What follows is a slogging journey through the tedium Romy is always throwing upon her family. Running away is a habit of Romy's, who often leaves with pills and alcohol, secreting away to someplace, but for what exact purpose, the reader does not know. Is she depressed? Is she an addict? Or is she just testing the limits of her adolescence?

Instead of taking responsibility for their one daughter, the parents, Anna and Matthew, send Kira out to track her and bring her home. On several previous occasions, this has involved Kira stumbling upon a drunk, unconscious sister, with hints of overdoses and emergency visits. The overall lack of interest, along with the genuine indifference over the return of their frostbitten, near-to-death daughter Romy, paints the parents' reactions as downright abominable. The book quite suddenly plummets into the unbelievable.

Between the impractical character development (or lack thereof) and the inundation of allusions, Whiteland becomes troublesome to read. Over-stylization obstructs the narrative and the reader, who has to digest the onslaught of Rosie Cranie-Higgs' constant vocabularic showing off.

A wintry horror story featuring Scandinavian folklore? I wanted to love this so badly but I couldn't.

I couldn't even get halfway through the book. I DNFed this pretty early. Which is a tragedy, because that summary hooked me in and the first chapter took my breath away. Cranie-Higgs' prose is a delight! But then the first chapter kept going on... and on... and on... and I was desperate for it to end.

The succeeding chapters don't have the same charm either. The author has a tendency to overwrite herself into circles until she loses all sense of urgency. She spends pages on an unnecessary description that could be squished into one paragraph.

And we have our characters who I truly couldn't connect with. The dialogue feels super weird. They're calm when they should be panicking. They spend so much time talking and dragging their feet when they're faced with a dangerous, life or death situation. I really don't get it.

- Kira and her family are on Holiday in a small snowy town.
The night before their departure her sister Romy wanders out in the snow at night. Romy is discovered by Callum (ski instructor) who brings her into the hotel to her families surprise. Romy should have froze to death!
Romy awoke as someone else, Kira knows it.
One by one, Kiras family dissappears
Kira sets out with the aid of Callum to find out what could be possibly happened to Romy and where her family went. They soon find more than they expected. -
.
3.5/5 .... only because it seemed extremely long in order to tell what we now know about 'White Land'.
However, with that being said I believe it was extremely long in order to set the tone for the following 2 books in this trilogy.
I anticipate they'll be better than this book!
I've read a few reviewers who put the book away at about 40% or so into it, it gets better. At least for me the story did.
.
.
In the sequels I hope to see Callum return and have learned things about White Land that Kira and Romy haven't. As well as his character developing and taking things a little more serious.
I'd like to know more about Lena, her back story and how/why she travels to the Outside as well as WL. And her connection to Callums mum.

Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers for this ARC. Sadly I didn't enjoy it and had to force myself to finish it. It started interesting enough but the story wandered back and forth without any real conclusion. It was very wordy without actually giving insights or descriptions.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this book. I enjoyed this story very much and thought it was a brilliant debut novel. I love supermarket myth type stories. I hope this author writes more.

Stretching her mouth to an inhuman gape, the woman starts to scream.




The beginning of the book was really creepy and I loved it. But, for me the story just fizzled out and became a chore to read.

I really hope others love it and you should decide for yourself at any rate.

*Thank you to Netgalley and BHC Press for a digital copy of this book.

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

I received an e-ARC through NetGalley.

Rated 2.5/5 rounded down.

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It felt as though I read two different books; the first half of this was a strange supernatural horror-ish story, the second half was a fairy tale about sacrifice. The main reason I'm not rating this higher is this inconsistent feel of the style. It reminded me of the book Hekla's Children, which is another book I very much enjoyed, but which read as two very different types of stories.

The best part of this was definitely the language; poetic and compelling and fitting with the fairy tale vibes. Although some of the pop-culture references felt unnecessary and forced, overall I enjoyed the writing a lot.

The less good was the inconsistency in POV and the attempts at twists that weren't very surprising. There was really no need to throw in random little chapters from a minor character's POV here and there. And I've seen other reviewers say the ending was unexpected, but I just felt as though we didn't read the same book.

I admit to being a bit disappointed on the whole. But if you're looking for a new adult dark fairy tale, this may well be the book for you.

« ‘I know where you’ve been’, she whispers. Her voice is sore but firm. ‘You and him. I know where you’ve been’. She sits up stiffly, jerky like a jump cut, backing into the headboard. ‘Pinky promise.’⠀
Kira raises an eyebrow. The flippancy quails inside her. Romy has never said that in her life. ‘And where is that, exactly ?’⠀
Righting her head with an awkward spasm, Romy smiles. ‘Whiteland’ »⠀
⠀
WHITELAND is Rosie Cranie Higgs's debut horror novel.⠀
The story takes place in Switzerland. An ordinary looking family is on holiday and everything seems normal, until the youngest daughter is found completely frozen but still alive.⠀
When she wakes up, her behaviour changes: she starts attacking her sister after she asks her where she disappeared to. The nightmare has just begun...⠀
I particularly liked the beginning of the book, the plot develops quite quickly and the author's pen is pleasant to read.⠀
There was a moment towards the middle when I got a bit lost because there was a lot of information about Nordic folklore at the same time, information that for me didn't add much to the story, but knowing that this is a trilogy, I suspect that the author has certainly prepared the ground for the last two volumes of her trilogy.⠀
I found the character development quite successful (I loved Callum and his humour and I could see Romy in my head with Linda Blair’s face from The Exorcist).⠀
I also liked the different references to pop culture (Sam is completely in love with Frodo, we definitely agree on that).⠀
I have to admit that every time I read "Hello", I had the Adele's song coming to me and it was quite disturbing. ⠀
And the ending... It's just barbaric to finish a book like that, leaving the reader with even more questions, just saying... ⠀
⠀
WHITELAND will be released on October, 15th, 2020.⠀
Thank you @netgalley and @bhc.press for sending me this ARC book.

Whiteland is an interesting story that ended in a completely different way than I expected. I was into it in the beginning, the plot and characters were creepy but then it turned into this fantasy land with so many characters and lands that it was hard to keep up. I enjoyed the two main characters and their chemistry together, but was not a fan of the repetitive movements that they kept making throughout. The ending really disappointed me. I struggled a bit to finish this book because I wasn't that into, and kept thinking that I was almost done and there was so much left to explain. Turns out, a lot was just left unexplained. I would not recommend this book.

I was given a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Whiteland is a difficult book for me to review. This book is like an adult fairy tale -- a combination of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, folktale, and Norse mythology all rolled into one epic horror fantasy. This definitely has all of the makings for a truly remarkable story and as I was reading I thought several times that it would be a beautiful movie. Unfortunately, it was a bit sluggish to read through and was downright confusing at times. I acknowledge that the confusion was intentional at times, but there were so may characters and creatures discussed and who at times randomly appeared for brief scenes. There was also a good bit of narration that did not drive the story forward. There were pointless conversations occurring during moments that it seemed completely unnatural. Rosie Cranie-Higgs has created an amazing fantasy world and I could see this being an entire series of books, but it felt a bit overwhelming. There were a few times during the 5 days of reading (I typically read books in 1-2 days) of reading that I contemplated not finishing. So overall I feel it's a great idea, but it just didn't work for me as it is written.

I received an e-book ARC of Whiteland from NetGalley and BHC Press in return for my honest review, which follows below. I thank both for this opportunity.

For me this novel fell into the Did Not Finish pile. I made it to about 44% before I had to realistically ask myself if I wanted to read the rest of the book, and the answer was no. It doesn't happen often, but does occur. I don't think the author's writing style worked for me.

The opening scene was well written; it seemed to set the tone for a creepy tale. Romy is found in the snow by Callum, a ski instructor at the resort her family is vacationing at. Her sister Kira senses something off about her almost immediately. Romy is violent and self harming, her parents at a loss on how to handle this. But for me the story stalled after that, I made it to 44% of the book, and nothing new had really happened. Callum and Kira went to the woods and found something confusing, but their interactions fell flat for me and made it hard to sink into. After they got back, chapters went by without the story really moving forward, it felt like nothing really happened. I started to feel bogged down by how long it was taking for the next big plot point to be revealed. After trying to make myself read more and really struggling to get into a rhythm, I decided not to finish the book.

The author was trying to make the narrative feel as tumultuous as the characters mindset, I think, and it made it hard for me to enjoy. Others may not have that issue, I'm not trying to dissuade people for checking out this book. But for me it's a no.

I found 'Whiteland' difficult to put down - I read it in two days (and it's not that short!). Consider my expectations for where the story would go well and truly bucked - there's a helluva lot going on under the surface...

The prose and the narrative instantly drops the reader into an atmosphere of disquiet, of surreality, of isolation. Almost Silent Hill-esque; that horrible feeling of being trapped in a nightmare when everyone else around you is safe and oblivious. And I'm going to continue with a few comparisons, if I may - firstly, the style and the plotting reminds me distinctly of another great horror YA author Dawn Kurtagich; and secondly, there were distinct tingles of Naomi Novik's 'Spinning Silver'. This may be horror, but it's a breath of fresh air to read a beautifully imaginative horror story set mostly in a mystical snowy land (basically a twisted Narnia).

Character-wise, I think I found it a little hard to warm to Kira - she's a tad pretentious. But it really helped to get snippets of her backstory, her life back home. Callum, meanwhile, is fun and almost puppy-like - and while I originally thought he seemed to care for Kira too quickly, later plot developments revealed the reason for this.

A few caveats to my enjoyment of the book (possibly making it 4.5 stars, but I have to choose 4 or 5, sooo) - I think the length could have been edited down, and I did find it over-described sometimes, the turns of phrase a little too laboured. Then again, there were some dazzling sentences - two favourites: "his skeleton is tense enough to split its skin" and "They could sit and drink tea, have a beer in the other hand, and misquote poets".

I suspect this book is going to linger in my thoughts a while yet.

Cranie-Higgs is bursting with potential that could easily give Melissa Mayer and Rowling some competition, but unfortunately there was a lot of confusion going on with how sentences were compiled and written with a narrative that ended up being more confusing than descriptive.

I applaud the author for her brilliant use of words she chose to use and how she executed them, but there just wasn't that much effort she put into just trying to tell a story. I don't compare authors to other authors in this specific regard, but there are plenty of popular authors out there who write great stories without needing to use the prettiest words or smartest grammar.

They say 'easy reading comes from hard writing', though I confess I don't know who the hell 'they' are or where this quote originated from, but it does spark some truth to the matter.

Cranie-Higgs has created a fascinating world of wonder and curiosity and her characters are truly unique in the way she wrote them, the cover is creepy AF and I will definitely be on the lookout for another of her books in the near future. She writes beautifully descriptive prose, but I just couldn't make much sense of some of the descriptions she wrote.

Rosie Cranie-Higgs' debut novel "Whiteland" is an incredible and immensely fascinating novel that draws on Norwegian and Scandinavian folklore to create an illusory, darkly fantastical and dreamlike tale that is highly unique in its narration and genre. Everything about Whiteland is outlandish, elusive, and morbidly vicious. It's a place so beyond comprehension and understanding that it draws people to it, but once there, all they want is leave.

The story follows Kira, who is on a family trip in the snowy mountains of Switzerland. When her sister Romy wanders out one cold winter night and is found nearly frozen to death, she's different. Malicious, wild, and violent, Romy is taken to the hospital with the hope she will recover in time to return home. Anxious to know what happened to her sister, Kira wanders out into the forest with a local named Callum, and together, they enter the strange and horrific realm of Whiteland and encounter its grotesque monsters.

The first half of the novel was a bit difficult to follow because the writing was disjointed and fragmented, a clear reflection of the characters' mentalities and the dreamlike quality of the setting. It disrupted the flow and left a lot of information to be deciphered, but I did enjoy the style of the author's writing because it was so distinct and unusual compared to other writers. Not many try to create a jerking, sharp tempo to their pacing throughout the story and I think for the most part it really worked, the details just need to be flushed out a bit more for comprehension.

There were a few times in the novel where Callum and Kira's casual conversations felt a little misplaced when I felt they should be panicking and not just accepting the situation. Likewise, Callum's constant inability to accept they must rely on those who live in Whiteland to help them navigate the land does get frustrating. It would've been nice to see his perception change slightly as their situation becomes more desperate.

The second half of the novel was ... morbidly delightful! It was full of all kinds of incredible beasts and creatures, and these highly imaginative landscapes that were so beautiful and compelling to read. I wanted more of these folklore-ish beasts because the concept is so cool and really added to the dark deception that underlies all of Whiteland. Cranie-Higgs' definitely knows what they are doing when it comes to writing horror and I can't wait to see what the rest of the series brings, especially when there are so many questions left unanswered. This is a novel I'd recommend to people with an interest in folklore, but also a storyline similar to inception. Of course, anyone who loves horror is guaranteed to love Whiteland.

Thank you to Netgalley and BHC Press for providing me with an e-arc of Whiteland in exchange for an honest review. Look for Whiteland by Rosie Cranie-Higgs on October 15, 2020 and add it to your Halloween Horror Book List!

I tried reading this one, but I just could not get into it and decided to DNF as per my review policy. I do not think it's a bad book, but it was not my kind of horro4 story and I really was not enjoying it. I enjoyed pieces of the story, but the narrative just felt so fragmented and did not work for me. I typically do not publicly rate or review books I do not finish. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Something has changed to Romy. When she returns she's different, she's violent, inhuman..... She should be dead!
This is a dark, supernatural book.
I enjoyed reading this as I'm not usually into supernatural books. But this one held my attention pretty well throughout the book.
The reasoning have this a 3 star review is because it was slow and never really picked up for me.
Thank you NetGalley and Rosie for this ARC.

What the hell did I just read? Granted I don't read much fantasy horror, I think I should still have some idea what is happening in a story straight off the bat. The beginning was very strange, with the reader thrown completely into the mix. Romy is drunk in the woods but is she hallucinating or has she already entered Whiteland? Is she bi polar or possessed? I was hoping for the later but sadly (for me) it was more fantasy than paranormal. After a manic episode the story quickly snaps again into Kira enjoying a ride on a ski chair lift? For pages and pages... What is happening?

I was completely confused throughout the entirety of this story, right to the end. I was left with so many questions and even after finishing, I have no clear answers. I understand this is the beginning of a series so perhaps the answers will come in later books. By no means is this book bad, it's just long winded and confusing. However, it's clear the author has potential. The story was dream-like, like entering Pan's labyrinth, which is mentioned. If you're into bizarre surrealism this book is for you. Perhaps I'm the wrong audience or this just wasn't the right story to really get me into fantasy horror, but I struggled to finish.

Thank you to the publishers for providing my copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a truly unique dark/horror fantasy. Rather than using the typical techniques to set the tone, the narrative was used with tremendous result. The clipped, jerking tempo grew into a character of its own, feeling as if it were a dread, thumping in the shadows. I've seen this done in scenes where building to a climax or to show an insane character's thoughts, but not typically for the duration of narrative. While it serves to make you feel utter dread and keeps you flipping pages faster, it also demands breaks in places. I had a few breathers, cups of coffee, etc as I read, which I also think served to add to the heightened sense of something awful is just lurking out of reach.

There were some really frightening parts when the imagery I conjured also gave me pause... more coffee and deep inhales. In the hospital with Romy was one that stands out. All of the parts in Whiteland held me enthralled. I think this will have a broad appeal. Fantasy with a darker edge, horror, even those of us who love fairytales with teeth should find this a tense/intense reading experience.