You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce
When I first started reading Camilla Bruce's You Let Me In, I thought it was going to be pure folk horror. An elderly romance novelist, Cassandra Tipp - once the defendant in a high-profile murder trial - has disappeared, assumed to be dead. When her niece and nephew arrive at her isolated home to find out the terms of her will, they find a letter which amounts to Cassandra's memoir.
What it reveals is a sinister and often uncomfortable story. As a small child, Cassandra falls under the spell of 'Pepper-Man', an adult faerie creature who attaches himself to her for the rest of her life. Pepper-Man is seemingly invisible to others, initially physically grotesque, and disruptive. His attentions are unrelenting and vampiric - quite literally - and it's Cassandra, naturally, who takes the blame for Pepper-Man's destructive mischief and for the physical injuries he inflicts on her.
And yet when, decades later, Cassandra is accused of brutally murdering her husband, …
What it reveals is a sinister and often uncomfortable story. As a small child, Cassandra falls under the spell of 'Pepper-Man', an adult faerie creature who attaches himself to her for the rest of her life. Pepper-Man is seemingly invisible to others, initially physically grotesque, and disruptive. His attentions are unrelenting and vampiric - quite literally - and it's Cassandra, naturally, who takes the blame for Pepper-Man's destructive mischief and for the physical injuries he inflicts on her.
And yet when, decades later, Cassandra is accused of brutally murdering her husband, …
