Fringe Fiction Unlimited discussion

I recently read The Monsters of St Osyth , which is an indie book, and I really enjoyed it.



It's a young adult book with a great supernatural element. It's fun and easy to read (it was hard to put down, so I finished it quickly).

Here's my review for it (which explains why I'm recommending it).

Freya, the 16 year old protagonist, truly reads like a 16 year old. The first chapter is stunning! What a beginning! The writing in the first chapter drew me in completely. We quickly learn that Freya, as a child, predicted her grandmother's death. Her parents have been somewhat disturbed by her ever since, and as a result Freya feels isolated and ashamed of herself. The novel takes place over the course of a summer. Freya's parents send her to St Osyth, a small English town where everyone knows everyone and there's nothing to do but gossip. When Freya arrives, the current topic of gossip is the Hudveks, a wealthy family consisting of a father and his seventeen year old opposite-sex twins.

Freya befriends Claudia, who is the daughter in the Hudvek family, and soon becomes infatuated with Claudia's brother Raven. However, mysterious misfortunes begin to befall the small town of St Osyth, and Freya struggles to accept that the Hudveks may be responsible.

The book is well written and easy to read; the pages flew by for me. Freya is a believable character with realistic faults, like adolescent self-focus and infatuation. I was eager to discover the truth behind the Hudvek family and what they were doing to the town, which is another reason this book was a page-turner. My only complaints are that the book was a little long and I felt some plot advancements could have occurred sooner. For example, the Hudvek's secret was withheld from the reader just a little too long, and Freya made some bad decisions that postponed the revelation and resolution of the mysterious dilemma (in a way that was a bit frustrating for me as a reader). However, the book was still a fun read. There is a scene between Freya and her uncle Darwin on the 10-year anniversary of the day Freya predicted her grandmother's death, and that scene was incredibly emotional and it really touched me. Long bottled-up and suppressed feelings were purged in a beautiful, caring way, and I loved it.