What Lies Beneath by Sarah Rayne

Another Sarah Rayne reread, because who cares about my TBR list? (Ok, I do but I like rereading books too)

What Life Beneath is the story of Priors Bramley. It was closed off after a chemical experiment was more harmful than expected, which means loads of secrets. In the past & present, Ella is worried that the re-opening of Priors Bramley will reveal the secrets she holds. In the past, the slow fall of the Cadences is shown through journal entries and a regular POV narrative with two main POV characters.

This sounds complicated, but it’s actually one big story that ties up satisfyingly (if rather sadly) by the end. There are at least 5 POV characters, but they’re all pretty distinct and effectively used to increase the tension in the book.

The most intriguing character has to be Ella. Crispian, Jamie (characters from the Cadence subplot), Amy, and Malik (characters from the present day) are all well-done, but Ella stands out because of her mental journey. She starts off as a sympathetic if slightly paranoid person who made a mistake as a child, but as her story continues, I found that there was much more to her than meets the eye. And it’s pretty terrifying.

Oh, and something I noticed in this reread is the narrative style. The POV is mostly third limited, but there are a lot of opinions from other people in the village, which allows you to get a sense of how the community thinks (or how a character interprets the community’s reactions). It’s a kind of nosy, informal style and I really enjoyed it.

According to the note at the end of the book, there are quite a few abandoned villages in England, and a few of them inspired Priors Bramley. That may actually be the most terrifying aspect, since it brings a sense of realism to the book.

I would totally recommend this to anyone who wants something a bit scarier than a normal mystery. There’s no outright horror here* but it’s a complicated, slightly creepy, and intense story.

* Which, come to think of it is weird because after my first round reading Sarah Rayne’s books, I associated her with “dual plotline horror” which shows how little I know of horror.