Rawblood
Rawblood is the 2016 debut horror novel by Catriona Ward. The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 24 September 2015 through Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The novel is published in the USA March 1, 2017 by Sourcebooks, as The Girl From Rawblood. Synopsis. At the book's start Iris Villarca is an eleven-year-old girl growing up in Dartmoor during 1910. She and her father live in a mansion named Rawblood, where he keeps her isolated from the general population. Iris's father justifies this isolation by stating that he fears that she will die from Horror  autotoxicus, a disease that caused her mother's death and has been a reoccurring ailment for the Villarca family. Despite this restriction Iris ends up befriending Tom Gilmore, only to find that their fathers are enemies. Iris's father discovers the relationship and tries to bribe her to stay away from Tom by paying for her tuition to medical school. She accepts the offer, but as time passes Iris secretly begins to believe that her father has made up the disease, unaware of her father's own past. Reception. Strange Horizons reviewed "Rawblood" favorably, praising it for "deliver[ing] all the  mystery and menace that one might hope for in a classic ghost story." The Historical Novel Society also reviewed the work, calling the writing "powerful and atmospheric". WHSmith selected Rawblood as a Fresh Talent title for Autumn 2016.