Something in the Walls is Daisy Pearce’s newest offering, a fever dream of witchcraft, small-town secrets, and damaged psyches set against the backdrop of a punishing British heat wave. Like her previous works, The Silence and The Missing, Pearce demonstrates her talent for atmospheric psychological horror, though this novel treads deeper into supernatural territory while examining the thin line between superstition and mental illness.
The story follows Mina Ellis, a newly qualified child psychologist who’s engaged but feeling adrift. When she meets journalist Sam Hunter at a bereavement group, she’s offered an unusual opportunity to assess a teenage girl named Alice Webber, who believes she’s being haunted by a witch in the remote Cornish village of Banathel. What begins as a professional assessment quickly descends into a nightmarish exploration of trauma, abuse disguised as tradition, and the power of collective belief.
The Cauldron’s Brew: Plot & Pacing
Pearce excels at creating an atmosphere of creeping dread. The novel’s structure works like a spiral, drawing readers deeper into its mysteries. As Mina investigates Alice’s case, we’re treated to an escalating series of disturbing incidents—ominous markings on walls, mysterious deaths, and moments where reality itself seems to warp.
The first half of the novel maintains a delicious tension between psychological and supernatural explanations. Is Alice genuinely haunted, suffering from a mental health condition, or being manipulated by those around her? This ambiguity powers the narrative engine effectively, creating genuine unease about what’s truly happening.
Where the novel occasionally falters is in its final third, when revelations come at an accelerated pace. The transition from slow-burn psychological horror to more overt supernatural elements feels somewhat abrupt. Similarly, the climactic “Riddance” ceremony, while genuinely horrifying, rushes through plot points that might have benefited from more careful unfolding.
Cast Under a Spell: Character Development
The novel’s greatest strength lies in its protagonist. Mina is a wonderfully complex character—a young professional with a desire to help others that stems partly from her own unresolved guilt. She’s sympathetic yet unreliable, and Pearce masterfully reveals Mina’s secrets in a way that complicates our understanding of her without diminishing our investment in her fate.
Other standout characters include:
- Alice Webber: Far from the stereotypical “creepy child,” Alice is rendered with authenticity—alternately vulnerable, manipulative, and defiant. Her relationship with Mina forms the emotional core of the novel.
- Bert Roscow: A genuinely unsettling antagonist whose grandfatherly exterior conceals profound evil. The reveal of his true nature is all the more chilling for how gradually it’s unveiled.
- Fern: The video store owner with a complicated past brings welcome complexity and eventually becomes a critical ally.
Less successful is Oscar, Mina’s fiancé, whose affair feels more like a convenient plot device than an organic part of the story. Similarly, some of the townspeople blend together, occasionally falling into “spooky villager” stereotypes that undermine the novel’s otherwise nuanced approach to small-town dynamics.
Whispers in the Dark: Themes & Subtext
Pearce weaves several potent themes throughout the narrative:
- The weaponization of superstition: The book explores how supernatural beliefs can be exploited to control others, particularly women and girls.
- Trauma and memory: Through Mina’s fractured recollections of her brother Eddie’s death and the various “Riddance girls,” the novel examines how trauma distorts remembrance.
- Collective delusion: The townspeople’s willingness to accept supernatural explanations rather than confront human evil speaks to our capacity for mass delusion.
- The monstrous feminine: The witch as a manifestation of female power and the fear it generates in patriarchal systems is subtly explored throughout.
These themes elevate Something in the Walls beyond mere horror, giving readers substantial ideas to contemplate long after the final page.
Incantations and Atmospheres: Writing Style
Pearce’s prose is richly sensory, particularly in her descriptions of physical discomfort. The oppressive heat wave serves as both setting and metaphor, with passages like this one demonstrating her talent for environmental immersion:
“The air is heavy with fragrant heat; melting rubber, hot clay. The tails of smoke. Sam, Bert and I walk slowly down Beacon Terrace, washed in a vast blanket of stillness. We talk quietly about the curfew and the heat wave.”
Her writing excels at creating unease through mundane details—the way a hagstone feels cool against skin, the smell of a dead fireplace, the slickness of mud beneath bare feet. These tactile descriptions ground the supernatural elements, making them feel all the more plausible.
Occasionally, the novel’s dialogue feels slightly too expository, particularly when characters are explaining local traditions or past events. However, this is a minor issue in a book where the prose generally strikes an effective balance between atmospheric description and narrative propulsion.
Strengths and Weaknesses: A Critical Assessment
What Works Well
- The setting: Banathel feels fully realized—a place with history, traditions, and hidden malevolence beneath its quaint exterior.
- The unreliable narrator: Mina’s fragmented memories and uncertain perceptions create genuine ambiguity about what’s happening.
- The blend of psychological and supernatural horror: Rather than choosing between these approaches, Pearce shows how they can reinforce each other.
- The “witch bottle” motif: This folkloric element functions brilliantly as both literal object and metaphor for containing dangerous secrets.
What Could Be Improved
- Pacing issues: The first half builds atmosphere wonderfully but the revelations in the final third sometimes feel rushed.
- Some underdeveloped subplots: Oscar’s affair and Sam’s grief over his daughter Maggie feel somewhat peripheral despite their potential.
- The resolution: Without spoiling the ending, Mina’s final choice feels abrupt after her careful, thoughtful characterization throughout.
- Certain supernatural elements: Some of the more overt manifestations of the “witch” clash with the otherwise nuanced psychological explanations.
The Final Verdict: Haunting Yet Imperfect
Something in the Walls is a compelling addition to the folk horror renaissance, sitting comfortably alongside works like Adam Nevill’s The Ritual or Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney. Pearce’s novel effectively combines psychological depth with supernatural dread, creating a reading experience that unsettles on multiple levels.
While not flawless—certain plot threads could use more development, and the pacing becomes somewhat uneven—the novel’s strengths significantly outweigh its weaknesses. Pearce’s exploration of how trauma and superstition can be weaponized against the vulnerable feels particularly relevant, and her skill at creating genuinely unnerving scenes is undeniable.
For fans of:
- Jennifer McMahon’s The Winter People
- Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger
- Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter
- Folk horror films like Midsommar or The Wicker Man
At its best, Something in the Walls isn’t just about supernatural horror but about the very human evil that lurks behind respectable facades. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of trauma, and how those narratives can either heal or harm. Despite its occasional missteps, this is a novel that will leave readers checking the darker corners of their homes—and their memories—long after they’ve finished reading.
Something in the Walls casts a powerful spell, even if a few of its incantations miss their mark. It’s perfect for readers who appreciate psychological depth with their supernatural chills, and who don’t mind confronting some genuinely disturbing subject matter on the journey.
Like the hagstones that feature throughout the narrative—rocks with natural holes believed to ward off evil—this novel allows us to peer through to the other side, where traditional beliefs and modern psychology collide in a dance as ancient as fear itself.
