Review: The Children on the Hill

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jennifer McMahon knocks it out of the park again. This book is a modern take on the story of Mary Shelley's work Frankenstein. As the author likes to do, there are two timelines, 1978, when the children are growing up in the shadow of The Inn, and 2019, when a podcaster, Lizzy Shelley, hunts monsters.
In the early timeline, Gran is a doctor caring for the mentally ill who are institutionalized at The Inn and she comes home to her grandchildren, Eric, Vi and Iris. Iris is the youngest and new member of the little family. She is selectively mute presumably from trauma or head injury and she is mentored by the older children. They spend their days with homeschool and monster hunting. They are curious children and decide to try to figure out who Iris really is and where she came from. Vi creates elaborate ways to obtain more information about her young mentee.
The later timeline follows a podcaster who travels around the country trying to spot and give evidence supporting sightings of various monsters that people have reported seeing. She then gets a notice about a monster in Vermont, home to The Inn, and decides to follow the lead. She sees the pattern of girls going missing from a certain area over the years and tries to find the monster responsible for the disappearances.
This is a fantastic read. Her books are always a joy and this one lives up to the praise. I found the beginning to drag a little for me, I think it was more me being distracted by other things and when the pacing picks up you know it. The story flies from there as you are quickly turning the pages. I enjoyed both timelines which each add very necessary aspects to the overall story. And even if you think you know where this story is going, you probably don't know. I could see this one being made into an onscreen adaptation as well. It was written in such a way that I had no difficulty choosing the atmosphere and characters and envisioning watching it.
Highly recommend to all thriller/suspense and atmospheric readers.

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