Epeolatry Book Review: Scuttler’s Cove by David Barnett
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Title: Scuttler’s Cove
Author: David Barnett
Genre: folk horror
Publisher: Canelo
Publication date: 13th February, 2025
Synopsis: Scuttler’s Cove is a working village, nestling in dramatic coastal scenery in Cornwall , where life has gone uninterrupted for centuries… until this seaside idyll was discovered by the rich. Now the quaint harbour-front cottages have been snapped up by second-homers and rental companies, and the locals can barely afford to live in their own town.
It is a very different place for Merrin Moon, who left for university at the age of eighteen and never looked back. Now in her thirties, she returns to the Cove for the first time since, after the death of her mother. She soon discovers that there are forces at play in the village she could never have imagined. Is someone trying to drive out the second homers? And has their arrival started a chain of events none of them will be able to stop? For something old and terrible is awakening beneath the town’s hallowed ground. And with it comes a horror that the residents have fought for generations to keep secret.
After reading the novel’s description, I just had to read it. I, too, live in a small town that is slowly being taken over by tourists. And Barnett’s book, a slow burn, didn’t disappoint. Things seemed to happen at random. But random they are not. The story flows back and forth through time with a seamless gradual building of not only back story, but tension. Barnett creates three dimensional characters—even ones you don’t like have flashes of good. They themselves are very diverse without being “woke.” In the end it is a story about humans and greed.
The villagers’ greed is a necessity once the second-homers move in; without it they won’t survive the winters without tourists. But many long for the old days. This year the first round of second-homers move in to their newly built homes. As timing would have it, the Fish Festival is just around the corner. That brings everything to a head. The festival will give sacrifices to both the goddess of the water and the god of the land. The sacrifice of a pig to the goddess is a public affair. The sacrifice to the god, however, will be human and performed under the cover of darkness at his apple tree. It has been done this way for generations. But some believe there is another way. A simpler way. That creates a struggle between villagers. There are those blinded by tradition and greed. There are those who believe there is a better way to appease the goddess and god.
Merrin was sent away by her mum to attend university, to get away from all this. But her mum’s death is what brings her back. Things had changed in Scuttler’s Cove while Merrin was gone. But it really stayed the same. This time she would be a major player in a gambit she knew nothing about.
David Barnett is quickly becoming one of the premiere folk horror authors.
/5
Available from Amazon.
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Jennifer Griffin is a freelance writer in northern Michigan where she lives with her husband, three pups and year round Halloween decorations
