// Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

Reading Ghost Wall was a spine chilling experience. It settles on your mind like a fog, making things seem hazy.

Moss's writing is exceptional, luring me in. There was an intensity that slowly built up in the pit of my stomach as I watched Silvie, the protagonist of the story live the life that her father dictates.

You notice the ominous signs, the looming fear of something terrible approaching but you just can't stop reading. Silvie's family decides to spend the vacation in North England with a Professor and other students to live like ancient Britons. They forage for food the way their elders did. They hunt, dress and live the way the elders did. Throughout their stay, far away from civilization, Silvie is fascinated by the other students' casual carelessness about the course. Silvie looks at her father who whips her legs if she does something wrong, who abuses her mother and cannot think of disobeying him. She grew up listening to her father rattle off about the elders. Their rituals and way of life taking up most of his mind, smudging the line between reality and past.

The two weeks course takes a rather unconventional turn, one in which the men inflict their rules and madness over the others. While building the Ghost Wall like the elders, a shocking series of events unfold.

Ghost Wall may very well be a novella but it packs such intensity that often big tomes fail to do so. This hauntingly clever book has convinced me to read more by Moss.