As this is my page, I'm going to be really selfish and devote this entire page to The Magic Cottage (published 1986).

This is my all time favourite James Herbert book. It is the story of a couple who want to get out of the rat race and live/work in the country. They decide on the New Forest as its within commuting distance of London. They find their idyllic cottage and set about restoring it. It's previous owner had been an old lady who had since died.

The couple perceived it as a magic place. Creatures were friendly, careers took off, things between them were so good.

The cottage was called 'Gramarye'.

Soon after moving in and becoming settled our couple are visited by some people from a mysterious 'sect' called the Synergists who are after something they think they will find in the cottage. Things start to go horribly wrong for our couple and they start to realise that their cottage isn't perhaps the 'magic' cottage they once thought it was.

This story is in a very different style than the average James Herbert book, and one hasn't been written since. On the first page of the book we are warned 'this is no fairy tale'. I, however feel it is. If you believe in that old rhyme 'ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night', then this is the book for you.

It is a fairy story and the magic woven into it goes further than the title.

Well worth a read time after time.

The cottage is so beautifully described that when out and about (I live very close to the New Forest), I always looked for it and it came as some disappointment to be told that it was in fact no where near the Forest.

I don't think I was the only person to make this mistake!!

Read it. You won't be disappointed.

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