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.

Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history and a new era has begun. 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. 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". This is a great read with strong characters and an addictive story. There are even touches of humour within the haunting chills. 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 .

Jason is an up and coming artist looking forward to the studio and quiet surroundings of the new home. Emily, with her friend Louise, is a caterer, and will manage the business out of the adapted garage. Everything looks wonderful as they work at settling in shortly before Christmas. They meet their across-the-street neighbors, Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell soon and learn they have little in common. The Penze-Weedells, especially Claudette, do seem close to caricature. The terrifying sequel to the bestselling The House on Cold Hill, from a master of spine-chilling horror. At the time he was officially the Vicar of Brighton – but with another hat, he was also officially, the Chief Exorcist of the Church Of England. That wasn’t his actual title, which was the less flaky-sounding ‘Minister Of Deliverance.’ A former monk, the son of two medics, a university double first in psychology, he was as far from Max Von Sydow’s Father Merrin in The Exorcist as you could get. He is a delightful human being, with whom I had become good friends, and still am to this day. He is a modern thinker, a clergyman who has a problem with the biblical concepts of God, yet still retains an infectious faith. His views, for instance, on the Ouija board are, that far from putting its participants in touch with the spiritual world, it actually opens up a Pandora’s Box of their own inner demons.

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.

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. 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. 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. It was very cliche, and in many ways was repetitive of the first instalment, but I just wanted a classic "haunted house" book for the lead up to Halloween, and this fit the bill. It did what I wanted it to do; it entertained me. From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes T he Secret of Cold Hill. T he spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill . Now a smash-hit stage play.

I am a big fan of Peter James novels and especially enjoy the Roy Grace series but he does write exceptionally good ghost stories. 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. I think it also made me reconsider my rating of the first book, and makes me want to put that down from a 5* to a 3.5*. This book was far stronger. The characters were much better (the snobby, horrible neighbours were awful people but so funny, I kind of warmed to them!) and in terms of the haunting, it was less of a movie-cliche, and far more realistic of true hauntings. This is the second book in the series, but I didn't feel I was missing anything by not having read the first book before I read this one.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. 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. 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 give it two stars out of generosity as you can tell Peter James is very capable of writing good books. He just isn't capable of writing horror in the slightest.