The Kettle Chronicles: The Black Dog of Bongay

The Kettle Chronicles: The Black Dog of Bongay by Stephen Morgan is a novel based on an old English folklore, Black Shuck, and Abraham Fleming’s written account with the dog in 1577. The book follows Captain Richard Brightwell, his secretary John Kettle, his servant Humfry, and his bodyguard Augustyn as they travel to Bongay to investigate the deaths of two churchgoers during a service. Morgan does an excellent job of making The Black Dog of Bongay thrilling while maintaining historical accuracy. Without giving any spoilers, there are some suspenseful parts of the book but I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as a horror book. I found the beginning of the novel to be a little slow but after reading through the first couple of chapters things began to pick up. It’s important to note that this book is written in Old English so if that’s not your cup of tea then it might be difficult to get through. Overall, I would say I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Black Dog of Bongay and if a historical ghost story sounds interesting to you then I would highly recommend reading this book.

Beware a Sudden Chill and a Growl at Your Back...That Shadow Has Teeth!

What a wonderful story! It's written in a gentle, colorful approximation of literature of the Elizabethan era, but is not too archaic and reads easily. Stephen Morgan is a fine writer!

The legend of the dog of Bongay is old and well-known, but he's filled out the story with details gleaned from history. Despite the good humor found in observations of and about the villagers of Bongay, there are still ample supernatural scares, mystery, and suspense, even when the author reveals what part of the story he's about to unveil ahead of time.

Morgan's fluent descriptions of the people, events, and scenes brought the story to life. His vivid presentation made me grow instantly fond of the central characters, particularly the heroic Captain Richard Brightwell, and I detested the villains with equal vigor. I cheered at the antics of the ball players, laughed as "Little John" fought "Robin Hood" in the play, and held my breath as the demonic black dog lurked nearby.

If you like historical mysteries with a paranormal flavor, you'll love this book. I'm honored to have received a review copy and am pleased to give my enthusiastic thumbs up!

Borrowing a little wit from the likes of Blackadder and Monty Python, and a lot of wisdom from The Hound Of The Baskervilles, and the legendary Black Shuck, this historical yarn is deliciously feisty and flamboyant.
The writing is original and innovative with the author speaking directly to the reader in a fine sixteenth-century Suffolk dialect that highlights some of the nuances of the English tongue.
An absolute pleasure to read.

Even if it's a bit slow at the beginning it's a gripping and well written historical mystery with some horror elements.
Good world building and plot development, interesting characters. The style of writing is a sort of archaic English and I liked it.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

An interesting tale based in English folklore written in an approximation of Elizabethan era English (not Old English). For anyone interested in horror stories blending history and folklore, this is a good story to settle down with on a cold autumn evening.

A humorous little tale, and quite entertaining, if hardly high literature. The author's directly addressing the story to the reader in a virtually present tense narrative is somewhat disconcerting to begin with, but once one gets used to this, the story begins to flow. The story is written in an Olde English vernacular, which will annoy many readers, and engage others (I loved it, myself), and this and the direct speech give this book a quaint individuality that serves it well. The whole thing is an exercise in 'tell don't show' and the author makes no attempt to set a visual scene for his reader. The characterisation is fairly blunt, as is the storytelling, and there is no finesse to the book at all, but it is what it is - a quirky little book, which is really quite good.