Emerald Fennell's Shiverton Hall: review

Emerald: blood-chilling

My chum Emerald Fennell’s debut, Shiverton Hall (Bloomsbury, £6.99, 249pp) takes its cue from the lineage of horror films, with shades of It, as a poor boy from North London receives a strange offer of a scholarship. He must battle not only with human evil, in the form of snobbery, but also with the supernatural forces that cluster around his new abode. All in a day’s work, naturally. A classic setting – an old country house, now a school – gypsy curses and imaginary friends coming to life provide an atmospheric backdrop to a blood-chilling story that’s perfect for reading under the covers.