“Listen and you’ll hear her brought back from the dead.”

Having first read Ramsey Campbell in a horror anthology a few books ago, I’m so glad that I chanced a search in my local library’s catalog and stumbled across “The Wise Friend.” Campbell’s elaborate, dizzying tale of cross-generational magic consequences left me breathless by the end. Spiraling dialogue, atmospheric scene imagery, and the very frightening reality of gaslighting cultivated Campbell’s perfect descent into madness.

The prose was violently British. Very dense style made easy reading a challenge but the story underneath, and some truly terrifying scenes slipped under all the flowery shrubbery, was worth the minor headache.

4.5/5 If all of a sudden I’m being guided on a (presumptively) misguided, yet magical, adventure with a quizzically beautiful stranger, leave me be and I will suffer the consequences.