As rapid as a drop from the gallows, this read will appal and delight. A deliciously vile pastiche of Victorian literature, we follow governess Winifred on her arrival at Ensor House, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds. Fuelled by her insatiable hunger for revenge, what follows is macabre body horror driven by the absence of love. If this sounds too much, rest assured: dead-pan humour accompanies every slash of the blade. Outrageously entertaining.
On the sprawling kitchen table lies a whole chicken, plucked bald, as spotted and sallow as an old man’s scalp, while an unshaved calf’s head bleeds onto the deal. I lift the head with my hands, its hair prickling my palms. I put my lips to it, sigh into its cheek, 'Good boy,' I whisper, 'good boy.' ... I look upon the head in my hands, the eyes still in their sockets, observing me ruefully under white eyelashes. I bite into its snout and cold flesh bursts on my tongue, plump and chewy and pink-tasting, water liquid running down my hands and forearms and pooling onto the white cuffs of my sleeves.
