The String Diaries
*Starred Review* Hannah is on the run, her young daughter and her grievously wounded husband depending on her for their own survival. Her destination: a remote farmhouse in Wales, a place where she hopes no one will think to look for her. But, rather than a safe haven, the farmhouse could be her last stand against an evil that has pursued her family for nearly 200 years, an evil that can change its shape and take on the appearance of anyone it chooses . . . like someone Hannah might trust with her life. Told in alternating chapters set in the present day, in the late 1970s (when Hannah’s father met her mother), and in the late 1870s, this is a scary and exciting horror novel that keeps us off-kilter, as we try to figure out what’s going on until we’re so involved in the story that we couldn’t look away even if we tried. Rather than tell us everything we need to know about the history of Hannah’s family at the very beginning of the book, as many writers might have, Jones doles out information a bit at a time, asking us to glean knowledge from dialogue and subtext. This is Jones’ first novel, and you don’t see many debuts more ambitious and memorable than this one. --David Pitt