Product Description

Who butchered sexy, manipulative Sonia Jones fourteen years ago? And subjected her to a grotesque post-mortem? What had she done to deserve such an end?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #689730 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

SFX Magazine
'A fine, evocative and haunting first novel...a contemporary ghost story to keep your heart pumping.'
(Wringland)

Good Book Guide
'This is a ghost story ahndled with real assurance.'
(Wringland)

Crime Time
'She's unquestionably got what it takes.'
(Wringland)

Customer Reviews

An easy enough read but not challenging.
Seeking a bolt hole to heal as a result of a sexual assault, editor's assistant Lucy Mitchell finds what she thinks could be paradise in a small Welsh town. She falls in love with a run down cottage that needs a lot of love and work, and what requires even more work are the town folk. It takes some time before the seller, an ex policeman and his gorgeous but irritating son admit to the bloody history of the cottage. It's a part of the country where Druids are still known to practice, albeit in secrecy, and their rich history has spawned a series of cults and like followers in the area. The murder of the local mother of two was never solved.

The people of the village do not find their eccentricities to be anything out of the ordinary, and it is their opinion that Lucy is the outsider who must accept their long practiced ways and customs. It is obvious that someone does not want her to buy the cottage and a series of notes and upsetting incidents only firm the resolve of Lucy to save the beautiful patch of land from those who would wish to harm it. Her next door neighbour seems to be the most touched of them all and she is never sure whether to believe him or the tales he tells of his parent's stormy marriage prior to his mother's murder. Deception piles upon deception until Lucy cannot believe even the simplest of statements. Is it fancy, or are the clouds particularly malevolent and threatening in her new part of the world?

"A Night With No Stars" can be frustrating to read. The main fault is with the heroine, who seems to need to be clubbed over the head before she sees sense and flees the creepy village of Rhayader. She is described as a very clever person yet manages to do some very silly and puzzling things. The character of Lucy is the figure around which the action is based, but not driven by. Things will happen to her, but she does not do much to investigate or help herself out of her predicament. Having said that, this novel is populated with a number of interesting creations who all have their own secrets and tales to tell. It is not, as described in various blurbs, a ghost story but the air of foreboding and impending dread is done well and serves to enhance the anti-climatic feel of the read as it progresses. An easy enough read but not particularly challenging if you like clever tangles to unravel as you tackle the whodunit factor.

Menace and mystery lurk in a beautiful background
I did something I rarely do with a book when I read "A Night With No Stars" - I read it twice. The first time was at great speed as the many twists and turns in the plot kept me turning the pages until late into the night, anxious to find out what happened next, while the second time was at a more leisurely pace to enjoy the power of Sally Spedding's writing.

Set mostly against the hauntingly beautiful countryside of mid-Wales, the story takes place in an atmosphere of ever-growing menace and mystery as the repercussions of a murder committed fourteen years earlier come down to the present, tightening their hold on the innocent as well as the guilty. The weather and the landscape play their parts as horror piles convincingly on horror until the story reaches its unexpected, but entirely satisfactory, climax.

"A Night With No Stars" is Sally Spedding's thrid novel. Both "Wringland" and "Cloven" were powerful, gripping stories, but "A Night With No Stars" is even better, What more can I say, except that I'm looking forward to the next one!