Perhaps the worst thing is that the whole plot just seemed to be lifted from The House on Cold Hill, with exactly the same sort of thing happening throughout, right down to the plot "twists". Peter James, author of the Det. Roy Grace police procedural series, has turned his deft hand to a new genre with this series, with mixed results. The story is very readable, because James is so skilled at writing narrative and dialogue. But the plot felt repetitive, consisting of a series of odd things happening, Jason and Emily talking themselves into believing that nothing strange is happening, and then more odd things happening. I did enjoy how James resolved the storyline. Things start smoothly but both couples sense a feeling of others in their new homes. This only gets worse when one of the locals points out that nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left. Jason and Emily Danes move into their new home on Cold Hill, and right away strange things begin to happen. Shadowy figures roam the hallways of the house, thumping noises can be heard from the attic studio, lights turn on and off for no reason. Scariest of all, Jason, an artist, and Emily, a caterer, can hear people talking in their house -- sometimes right in the same room that they're in. Adding to their unease is a sense of isolation resulting from the fact that they are only the second family to have moved into their new housing development. The following Sunday, we invited her parents to lunch. Whilst she was occupied putting the finishing touches to the meal, I took her mother aside and asked her what exactly she had seen that day we were moving in. She described a woman, with a grey face, dressedin grey silk crinoline, moving across the atrium – exactly what the old man had described to me.

For the first two families to move into their new houses at Cold Hill Park, this is a fresh start. Jason and Emily Danes are thrilled to finally settle in to their family home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s a long-awaited retirement dream. Cold Hill Park appears to be the perfect place to live. In fact, as I sit here writing this, I am now positing another possible explanation for some of the confusion. Hmmm...well I’m not going to share it with anyone; they might think I’m a bit crazy to even come up with the idea. I am a big fan of Peter James novels and especially enjoy the Roy Grace series but he does write exceptionally good ghost stories. I’ve been a fan of Peter James for years but it’s hard to believe that the Cold Hill books are written by the same author that brings us the excellent Roy Grace series. The plot itself - a boilerplate ghost story - is fine if you don’t think too hard, but the writing really grated with me and it took a while to figure out why: the dialogue is dreadful. Every spoken interaction sounds like it was written by a chatbot that has never heard an actual human conversation. Random slang in all the wrong places, stilted and repetitive phrasing, and sentence structures that I’ve never heard a real person use when speaking. It’s honestly the weirdest thing, especially when you compare it to James’s other books - and once you spot it, it becomes hugely irritating.

There is long-winded focus on things like which flavour chocolate choices are being consumed from a tin or a coffee machine. So much inserted boring and irrelevant detail. I did like the fact that it seemed very similar at first, because I was expecting it to go off in a different direction, like these guys would do something to break the chain. Again, it was a bit different because there are different ghosts featured than were in the first book, but that really didn't change things much. Nothing amazing happens that didn't happen already in the first book. Now to the story. Slowly odd things begin to happen. Footsteps heard where no one should be walking. Voices talking out of empty space. Disturbing. But not yet scary. Then there are shadows. What is in this house? Jason and Emily learn a little about the area from locals, enough to increase their curiosity. Meanwhile he is working on important art work due before Christmas. The characters that populate The Secret of Cold Hill are compelling. Readers will most probably find the lead couple, Jason and Emily, very agreeable and relatable. I genuinely wanted this couple to conquer the feat of Cold Hill Park! On the other hand, I had plenty of contempt for the other couple of the tale, the Penze-Weedell’s. However, I think we have all had cringe worthy neighbours in our lives at some point in time that we wish to avoid at all costs! James utilises a good dose of humour to this couple, which offsets the darkness of this spine tingling tale.

This is the 2nd book in the 'House on Cold Hill' series but can easily be read as a standalone but I would definitely recommend reading the other book as well. The Secret of Cold Hill isn’t drastically different from the first book in many ways, and it’s not James at his best by any means. I could never quite make my mind up about the ending of The House on Cold Hill. This time out, the resolution is rather a cop-out and not much of a surprise in the scheme of things. There are a handful of genuinely spooky moments where I was glad I had the lights on, but they’re a bit thin on the ground and rely on a fair bit of repetition. By my own admission I am not a prolific reader of this genre and feel far more at home with the psychological thriller but such is Peter James writing that I always entertained by his novels. The House On Cold Hill is very much inspired by, and modelled on, an isolated historic house in Sussex that my former wife and I bought in 1989 – and which turned out to be seriously haunted.

Summary

I felt a tad cynical about her response – but at the same time, I was now feeling deeply uncomfortable in what should have been the sanctuary of my own home. But there was a vicar I knew who I thought would be able to help, and with whom I had become good friends. Even so, I was a little surprised when he cheerfully entered the atrium, stood still for a couple of minutes, and then loudly and very firmly enunciated, into thin air, ‘You may go now!’ The terrifying sequel to the bestselling The House on Cold Hill, from a master of spine-chilling horror. All up this really didn’t do anything for me and could see so many ways a lot could have been in the book to really lift it. Would I have enjoyed it more if I’d read the book? I pondered this but realised the pace and plot would not of held me tight anyway. You cannot bury evil’ states the spine tingling front cover tagline of bestselling British author Peter James’ brand new novel, The Secret of Cold Hill. Following on from his 2015 release, The House on Cold Hill, which was recently made into a theatre production, the second book in the Cold Hill series is creepy, intense, unpredictable and consuming.

As the novel progresses, many things begin to become confusing. We see events through Jason’s perspective throughout and when he or Emily is confused or disagree, what are we to think? Does it matter? At one point late in the book, Jason thinks to himself How much, since they had moved here, was real? I think this is an important question as the confusion of the last third of the book actually decreased my feelings of dread. I had been feeling a build up but then I lost where the plot was going along with Jason. But I did enjoy the setting, the varied characters (except Claudette), and the build up . A few days later, a medium who had helped me a lot during my writing of Possession came to the house, and I took her into the atrium, and left her on her own, as she had requested. The Secret of Cold Hill is now the third book I have read recently that fuses old world gothic history with the contemporary. There is also a strong slant towards technology in this book, as the houses populated by the families of this novel all contain highly modernised home systems that are automated and work on voice recognition. Of course we know that technology is not immune to malfunctions, which occurs in The Secret of Cold Hill, but we do question if something more malevolent is at work.There is a strong strand of unpredictability that follows The Secret of Cold Hill from the start. The short and highly engrossing chapters are populated by events that follow a tight time frame. The novel opens on 20th October and then wraps up on the 27th December. There is an additional closing chapter based in April 2020, which served to answer a few questions I had about the book, but it also posed a few more! I do hope Peter James is able to extend upon these questions in a possible future issue, or issues of this engrossing series.

But it’s not fair to compare James to Herbert, because while there are passing similarities, they both hold up on their own. It’s pretty exciting to see James taking on more traditional horror like this because he’s mostly thought of as a crime author because of his Roy Grace books. The Secret of Cold Hill shows that he’s far more versatile than that.I returned to the house after our walk, feeling very uncomfortable. I even wimped out of going through the atrium into the kitchen to make my afternoon cuppa. But when my wife came home in the evening, I said nothing – I suppose I did not want to believe it myself, and she was still extremely nervous about living in such an isolated house. This seems like a negative review, but it's not entirely. I did enjoy this book. Peter James is a great writer and this book is just as well written. It's easy to read and it is enjoyable. The ghosty bits are suitably chilling. I think I was just a little disappointed, and I expected it to be different. I don't really understand the author's motivation to write this.