Fowler, Christopher: Nyctophobia

A first person narrative of a woman whose life has been damaged by psychological problems with
particular reference to fear of the dark.   She meets and falls in love with an older Spanish wine
executive whose charm and sophistication are such that they marry.   They find a rather strange
mansion inland from Marbella which both of them like so he buys it as the family home   With the
house they inherit a housekeeper, the third generation of her family to have the position, and a
gardener/handyman.   They settle in with his daughter and life appears fine until the narrator starts
having visions.   The line between reality and the actual becomes blurred in what develops into a
literally haunted house story.   Obviously, this is far removed from the Bryant and May books for
which Fowler is best known and it reads differently to his earlier horror stories.   This is a more
subtle approach while still being a chilling tale.    Perhaps because my reading was more than a
little interrupted (I started the book before but finished it after the two previously reviewed novels), I
found it well-written but not as involving as I at first thought it would be.