The boys go to the Second World War. The father sells the farm and moves closer to the cities. The boys return after war and Jim leaves for the University while the older boy joins his father on their new farm. Once during a discussion about coping with war, the elder brother says he had no happy memories to focus on during war. But Jim says, for him, their old farm was Te Wahiokoahoki, the place of happy return. The brother feels jealous that he could never feel that way. After a break in their London home, Jess no longer feels safe. When Pete suggests moving to the countryside, it seems like the best option for the family and their two young children. But, after viewing the Maple House, out in rural Suffolk, in the middle of summer and being captivated by its charm, it suddenly looks and feels menacing and disturbingly remote when the family arrive in the autumn on moving day. What a spine tingling, hair raising beaut of a book. The first few chapters set this book up beautifully, playing into the readers mind and fears, using nature to exacerbate what is already there. You can imagine looking out into the night and feeling the fear. We have all been there. As adults, we rationalise that the likelihood of something or someone being out there is minimal, but what if there is?

When the Depression is on them, the father finds the farm to be less profitable and he considers the prospect of setting it and moving. He stays on, not because any special love he feels for the land but because he has invested money and labor on it. One day a group of Maoris visit the farm. They carry with them, in a litter, an old man. They say that, the old man, a tribe elder was born on the hills behind the farm when the land belonged to the Maoris. He wishes now, when he is close to death, to see the place of his birth once again. The father is thoroughly perplexed but Jim is understanding and offers them the greenstone adzes which he believes belonged to the tribe. The Maoris depart to the hills with the old man. Jim goes with them. Sometime during the night the old man dies and his people bury him on the mountain. Jim comes home with an account of how the Maoris lived in the area until the whites came in and defeated them. But they still consider this land to be their home. The father now begins to comprehend what land means to some people. The narrator’s father most likely belongs to a tradition of men who do not believe that their wives are their equal. It’s not that that they might not love their wives but at no stage are they ever treated as being equals. If anything there appears to be a gender imbalance between the narrator’s father and his mother. Something again which would have been common place at the time the story was set. The narrator’s mother spends the majority of her time in the house while it is left to the men to milk the cows and work the land. Despite any gender imbalance that might exist the narrator’s mother is still happy to live and work on the farm. She believes her place is beside her husband regardless of the fact that he may not necessarily treat her as she should be treated. It is also interesting that Jim never sees any sense of imbalance between his parents. He is just happy to spend time with his mother. Something that is easier than working the land with his father. Jewish people suffered antisemitic persecution throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Antisemitism did not emerge for the first time when the Nazis took power in 1933. Jewish communities were always a minority of the population, which made them a target for persecution. This is every bit as accomplished as Northedge’s debut The House Guest, with the same precise and finely tuned use of language, by no means always a given in the genre.’ FINANCIAL TIMES The ending feels rather unsatisfactory - the bit where everyone is supposed to get their just deserts does not quite pan out. I'm undecided whether that is a strength or a weakness.

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Charlotte Northedge creates a riveting psychological study of self-deception and creeping dread.’ THE SUNDAY TIMES SUMMARY: Maurice Shadbolt is one of the towering figuresof New Zealand literature, winning numerous awards andaccolades for his work, much of which examines the historyof the country through narrative. The central characters inthis story are carving out a farming existence on the land, Rose is unsettled by the house and sees the small cupboard in her room as a safe place and Jess finds her staring out of her window at night sobbing. She saw the retreating burglar and is frightened that he may return. Sara, one of the school gate mums, tells her the local scary story about a young boy who drowned at Maple House and thinks she recognizes Eve but is unsure why. It’s unoriginal and not perfectly executed, but I did enjoy the tension and the explosive plot. Even if I was let down by the disappointing conclusion. Pete’s ideas for renovation are overwhelming, and now that Jess has given up her own job working in a gallery in London, she finds herself on her own in the house a lot, failing to connect with the school mums, and losing her connection with Pete at the same time. And then she meets Eve… and the history of the house starts to unravel.

and the importance of land ownership to the family is madeapparent in a number of phrases in the story. The narratortells us that „my father took on that farm‟, he refers to theimportance of „Land of your own,‟ which becomes „yourown little kingdom‟. The suggestions of the history of theland come through the discovery of the greenstone adzes Governor George Wallace was a leading foe of desegregation, and Birmingham had one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. Birmingham had become a leading focus of the civil rights movement by the spring of 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested there while leading supporters of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation. Overall, a mixed bag read although there are plenty of positives not least in the cloying atmosphere. The people before”, though not in the story as characters, influence much of the story and the attitude of the characters. The father has no time to think of them except when Jim displays the greenstone adzes. Even then the father does not relate to the “people before”; his thought is only about how much they could be worth. The people before were so intimately connected to the land that they have carried the old man to the spot where he was born so that he could see it one more time before dying. The narrator’s father on the other hand frequently talks of selling the farm when the going gets tough. The land is just something that he owns and puts to work.The story is about an unnamed family that buys a farm that has not been prosperous. The father has always been keen on owning land as he has seen his father work as a sharemilker on other people’s land. There are two boys in the family. The elder one is rather like his father who enjoys the outdoors and the hard work of the farm. Jim, the younger one is rather weak and he prefers to be inside with his mother. The father farms only the flat land leaving the hills beyond, which were his, to run wild. Jim and his brother go wandering on Sundays. Jim explores the caves near the river and finds some jade adzes inside. Once he finds a human skull too which must have belonged to a Maori who had lived there long ago. When the father sees the adzes, he wonders only about how much they could be worth.

This should be a twisty psychological thriller. Sadly, the title rather gives the game away. There is some tension right at the end, and the intrigue of how it al fits together, but the big reveal at the half way point will not surprise anyone.

The narrator’s father also appears to be interested in the history of the land. Where once he was suspicious of Tom. He is a more willing student when Tom starts to talk. Though it is not explicitly stated by Shadbolt the reader senses that the narrator’s father is proud of the history of his land. If anything it lightens the load that the narrator’s father feels due to the effects of the Depression. Also no longer is the narrator’s father interested in selling the land after Tom and the other Maoris visit. It is as though there visit has been the impetus for the narrator’s father to work even harder. It is also noticeable that the narrator’s father doesn’t fully understand Maori tradition when the old man is left on Craggy Hill. The reader aware that the old man wanted to die and be buried on the land of his youth. Should the narrator’s father have been aware of Tom and the other Maoris intentions there is little chance that the narrator’s father would have been in agreement. This may be important as it suggests that the narrator’s father is not accustomed to Maori tradition.