THE CROWS is Book 1 of the Pagham-on-Sea series by C. M. Rosens, but is also a standalone Gothic Horror with tentacles novel that plays with Gothic and Eldritch Horror tropes. Other novels in the series include 13th and The Day We Ate Grandad.
Plot (Spoiler Free)
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (all right, afternoon) in an Old, Dark House, and the first chapter opens with "Chapter One: in which Carrie Rickard has 33 days left to live", and things only get worse from there. Carrie Rickard doesn't know she has 33 days left to live, but her neighbour does. Ricky Porter has been obsessed with her Sapient House since he was a little boy, and now Carrie owns it instead of him. He's a soothsayer, a cannibal, and an Eldritch Abomination, while Carrie is a supermarket worker struggling to pay her bills.
Ricky knows that Carrie has to die at exactly the right time for him to get everything he wants, but he doesn't know how it will all go down - he's her Stalker without a Crush, willing to do it himself, but as Carrie starts investigating the house's history and digging up a Dark Secret that the Evil Old Folks would kill to keep quiet, he finds it much harder to keep her alive than he thought. Worse, in getting more involved than he meant to, Ricky starts to understand what friendship is for the first time in his life; but the days are ticking down, and You Can't Fight Fate.
Tropes in The Crows:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Carrie makes a wish in the wishing well in the grounds of the house that comes true in unexpected ways.
- Brain Fever: Carrie suffers with a mysterious ailment when cursed, and the ailment mimics these symptoms, putting her in a Damsel in Distress situation.
- Creepy Basement: The house has one, and so does Ricky's cottage, in which he keeps a handmade chimera he calls Gerald.
- Deal with the Devil: Carrie and Ricky's relationship can best be described in this way, although it develops into a twisted Queerplatonic relationship with the Sapient House.
- Inbred and Evil: Ricky's family, with his parents hinted as being a Gothic Horror Brother–Sister Incest example. He himself says his family are so inbred that "I'm lucky I got away with an extra mouth".
- Haunted Heroine: Carrie is haunted by her recent past (an abusive ex-boyfriend) and by the ghost of the little girl who was ritually murdered in the house in 1958.
- Malevolent Architecture: The Crows is known for luring people into its ruins and causing them harm, causing it to have a reputation among the locals.
- Monster Progenitor: This is a mysterious Voice that Ricky can hear in his head, connected with the shrine in his gran's cellar.
- Real After All: This isn't a realization at the end of the novel, though, this ends Part 1 of the novel where Carrie sees The Unmasqued World and the plot dives off the deep end.
- You Can't Fight Fate - Ricky is convinced that the future is immutable, and that's never bothered him before (until now).
