THE WICKER MAN PRESERVATION SOCIETY

A character-driven horror novel follows a teenager who lives on an island in the Hebrides.

Eleanor Carlyle is just shy of 16 years old. She lives on a small island in the North Atlantic called Ensay, where she helps her mother run the Ensay House Hotel. There are only 407 people on Ensay and, as Eleanor tells it, she knows all of them. In her free time, Eleanor enjoys painting and focusing on her correspondence courses with a secondary school on the mainland. While she may seem average, she is anything but. For one, she suffers from agoraphobia: She has not been outside the hotel since she was 3. What’s more, her upcoming 16th birthday is very important. The island is home to a secretive group of women who practice a pagan-esque religion and Eleanor is an acolyte. This means that once she turns 16, she must choose a man with whom to lose her virginity. The male lover will then be burned alive. Eleanor’s mother was also an acolyte. It is an aspect of life on Ensay that the typical visitor never gets to see. Readers follow Eleanor as she goes about her days with her religious-ritual fate approaching. According to the rules, she must pick the man herself. Enter a boy named Connor Maxwell, who is from Ireland and the nephew of a local resident. Connor takes a liking to Eleanor despite her peculiarities. Pondering this surprising development, she reflects: “I think he likes me and I’ve never been liked before and I don’t know if I like him or if it’s just the incandescent novelty.” Could she really send Connor to his death? What if everything she thinks she knows about Ensay is wrong?

Porteous’ engaging narrative takes a slow-burn approach to Ensay’s casual horrors. Unlike in a more traditional horror novel, the terror of Eleanor’s religious reality is almost secondary to her daily life in the family hotel. By the time readers start to notice that the eccentric story has a dark side, they are already familiar with some of Ensay’s silly details, including that there are just two cars (only one of which is running) and that “most of the people on the island are quite old and have a pleasant, book-learned sense of humour.” It’s a setup that makes the tale’s spookier aspects (for example, women in black cloaks and the residents’ apparent penchant for burning bodies) all the more troubling. Still, some of the casual details can drone on. At one point, Eleanor explains the differences of full European breakfasts (an English breakfast versus an Irish breakfast versus a Scottish breakfast) and how guests from around the world react to them. As notable as it may be that the English breakfast includes a tomato, there are bigger problems to attend to. Ultimately, the story’s slow approach turns out to be the book’s greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition creates a singular tale with a uniquely chatty tone. Eleanor is an indelible protagonist in a memorable place. The charming island that sells “semi-Celtic jewellery” to tourists is also one that apparently sends some unlucky men to fiery deaths. Welcome to the outer limits of Scottish hospitality.

This surprisingly quirky and enticing tale delivers dark secrets and a lively protagonist.