Pine – Francine Toon

£10.99

In a remote Highland village surrounded by dark pine forests, a mysterious woman’s disappearance draws a young girl into a web of local secrets, unsettling folklore and unresolved family grief.

Halloween Picks, Hokum Vibes, Widows Bay Vibes

2 in stock

Overview
Synopsis

They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.

Lauren lives with her father, Niall, in an isolated Scottish village where the surrounding forest seems to hold as many secrets as the people who live there. After a mysterious woman appears on the road one Halloween night and vanishes by morning, Lauren becomes increasingly aware of the strange events and disappearances troubling the community. As she searches for answers, the past, local superstitions and tensions within her own family begin to converge.

A great read for fans of the unease of The Wicker Man and the slow-building dread of The Witch.

All Nightmare Nook Books are selected by our chief Book Ghoul, Cat. Here’s why Pine made the cut:

“An isolated setting, gothic folklore vibes and a missing person mystery – what’s not to love! If you like your thrillers literary and tinged in horror, then this is a great pick to add to your TBR!”

Condition:

Brand new and ready to thrill.

Synopsis

They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.

Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone.

In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago.

Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it's no longer clear who she can trust.

In the shadow of the Highland forest, Francine Toon captures the wildness of rural childhood and the intensity of small-town claustrophobia. In a place that can feel like the edge of the word, she unites the chill of the modern gothic with the pulse of a thriller. It is the perfect novel for our haunted times.