Thin Air: The most chilling and compelling ghost story of the year

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Michelle Paver’s descriptions of Himalayan mountain-climbing are terrifyingly lifelike — the lashing winds, glittering ice: you can see it all. If you didn’t think it was possible for a book to be scary, just you wait. I can see this being one of those books I’ll enjoy reading year after year, without it losing any of its impact. It’s a powerful and genuinely chilling book.

Thin Air by Michelle Paver | Waterstones

As Stephen continues, his attitude towards Lyell changes, and as he re-reads his words as a grown-up, the more pompous and misguided his mission sounds. Stephen is also dealing with a recent break-up that saw him leave his partner weeks before marriage and a strained relationship with his older brother, which cunningly leaves you questioning his state of mind.For anyone looking for a good ghost story with a rich, atmospheric setting and a historical element (yes, this book has it all!), I cannot recommend this book highly enough! There are about three parts in this that are really frightening. So much so that I found myself actually gasp out loud! More of this throughout and I would have given a 5 star review.

Michelle Paver Books | Waterstones Michelle Paver Books | Waterstones

Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling, determined to conquer the sacred summit. But courage can only take them so far - and the mountain is not their only foe. Michelle Paver was born in central Africa, but came to England as a child. After gaining a degree in biochemistry from Oxford University, she became a partner in a city law firm, but eventually gave that up to write full-time. There's just something about the bleakness, the sheer depth of the isolation and the unfamiliarity of this terrain to me that I love in this book. Put that alongside the fact that it's a mix of psychological thriller and ghost story , and you've got a winner. REBEL ANGEL blogHowever, the setting on its own would not be enough. Paver creates a small cast, well drawn, but focuses on one man and his difficult realtionship with his conceited older brother. Through this narration, we become immersed not only in the sibling relationship but also the harsh conditions of the expedition. Our group is trying to reach to summit of the yet unconquered third highest peak of the Himalayas, retracing the steps of a previously ill-fated team. This book is guaranteed to give you chills! Don't read it just before going to bed... * MARTIN BELCHER blog *

Thin Air by Michelle Paver review – Touching the Void meets

It's chilling. Thrilling. And downright scary. From the get go I had chills running up and down my body. I had the shakes at one particular point and had to keep looking up to make sure that I was actually on my own. Such is the power of Michelle's story telling that I felt like there was an unwanted entity with me, watching me, plotting to take me down the way the ghost in the story does. When reading it you really feel the sense of isolation the characters are feeling. You can feel it build, and it almost feels like a physical reaction for you as the reader. You start to second guess things, start to try to think of a logical explanation, even when there isn't place for one. By the end of the book I really felt the paranoia set in and it made me wonder what I would be like in that sort of situation. I could hardly read it without losing my cool, I dread to think what I would be like. Paver constructs her narrative expertly. The human drama is engaging, while the scares are unfurled slowly but surely, to chilling effect. * CATHOLIC HERALD *Paver has an object, and I whimpered anxiously as it brought the added accretion of my memory of Jacobs'story into the room. * LADY FANCIFULL * After finding herself mesmerised by the history, vastness and the terrifying solitude of the Himalayas, Michelle Paver uses it as the setting for this undeniably gripping account of a 1935 expedition up Kangchenjunga...Step in with excitement, yet the greatest of caution... * ABERDEEN PRESS & JOURNAL * In 1935 Dr. Stephen Pearce and his brother Kits are part of a five-man mission to climb the most dangerous mountain in the Himalayas, Kangchenjunga. Thirty years before, Sir Edmund Lyell led an ill-fated expedition up the same mountain: more than one man did not return, and the rest lost limbs to frostbite. “I don’t want to know what happened to them. It’s in the past. It has nothing to do with us,” Dr. Pearce tells himself, but from the start it feels like a bad omen that they, like Lyell’s party, are attempting the southwest approach; even the native porters are nervous. And as they climb, they fall prey to various medical and mental crises; hallucinations of ghostly figures on the crags are just as much of a danger as snow blindness.