Sunday 6 January 2013

Review: Island Life By William Meikle

After a particularly big Amazon binge following some unexpectedly large gifts of Amazon vouchers, my Kindle is overflowing with books. I'm a terrible hoarder and already had a backlog of books anyway. Now something must be done so I'm dedicated to reading as many of the unread books I own as possible this year.

First up was Island Life by William Meikle. The Kindle edition was under £2 and I wasn't expecting much but bought it as it had quite a good rating. I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Set on a Scottish island, it details a scary couple of days as supernatural horrors burst forth from a recently begun archaeological dig. It is a very simple story, and Meikle does not waste time on unnecessary intricate details, so the pacing of the book makes for an easy read.

Meikle writes characters well enough that you do worry about what might happen to them. There are a few chilling scenes (especially the main character Duncan's flashback to a time he ended up trapped in caves in his youth), and enough realistic interactions to keep the supernatural aspects grounded.

This is no masterpiece, but it is well-written, genuinely creepy and was a great antidote to Stephen King's (also awesome) 11/22/63 that I had just managed to get through. Stephen King writes masterpieces but they aren't easy reading! Island Life was a pleasure compared to that.

I'd rate it 4/5 and, once I'm through my backlog, I'll be looking up more of Meikle's work.

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