Remembering The Matrix

A Review I wrote on this classic tale a while ago...

In the Matrix, Jonathan Aycliffe has sculptured a wonderful book of deception and horror. The plot slowly turns like a vice and you are engrossed as each twist and turn takes you deeper into the story line.


Andrew Macleod, the lead character has recently been widowed. Unable to come to terms with his wife's death, he seeks solace in his research into the works of black magic and the occult.

Taken under the wing of the devious Duncan Mylne, Andrew is drawn unwittingly into the world of the arcane and the terrible. The more he learns from this man, the more dangerous things are becoming. People, close to him are trying to get him to stop this learning and telling him that Mylne is evil, but Andrew won't listen to the, not until it is too late and people are killed.


We have ghostly characters here, we have sinister happening and bumps in the night. As Andrew is more learned in the works of the occult, and so he discovers the true meaning of the Matrix and its key to everlasting life…

Very cleverly written, it is reminiscent of all the classic horror story teller: Poe, Wheatley, Hogg…


Oh, and it's a frightener too.

This is classic horror, a tale of the darkened world of the supernatural told by the only man who can tell such a tale.

(Paul McAvoy)

The Silence of Ghosts - My Thoughts

The Silence of Ghosts was released last year – nine years since the last Aycliffe, A Garden Lost in Time. 216 pages long and published in paperback by Corsair, it is set during the first world war and contains two of my greatest loves: The English Lake District, and Ghosts! 

The story is about Dominic Lancaster, who loses a leg in the war then to convalesce he goes to stay at the family house at Howtown near Ullswater, taking his deaf, young sister Octavia with him. His family are in the importing and exporting business, quite snobby, but very rich.

He has a nurse (Rose) who comes to see him from Pooley Bridge and he quickly falls for her, however , things are not  all happy. While his relationship with Rose grows stronger, his sister can hear whispering in the house – even though she is deaf and there is the occasional sighting of four strange young children both in the house and out. Aycliffe slowly builds up the tension in the perfect way. There are tragedies and dark secrets are revealed.

During a recent trip to the Lakes I had a look for the family house in Howtown, ‘Hallinhag House’ but could not find it (so I guess it is all borne from Mr Aycliffe’s imagination), however it was nice to get a feel of the place and I saw the church that is mentioned on the book.

The writing here is lovely... his style has always been one I have enjoyed reading. Yet I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed with the new Aycliffe book. It’s all been done before and the end just crawls in an inevitable conclusion. There is not much to scare you here, whereas his early books used to give me the creeps often. I am glad he is back and I am glad to have read this... I hope he produces many more...

(This review may appear in another form on Ciao and Dooyoo under my username 'Borg')

(Paul McAvoy)