Somewhere between Donna Tartt's Secret History and AS Byatt's Possession, a brilliant, towering, puzzle-box of a novel about perfect summers and forbidden knowledge...

Summer, 1993, and Alex Lane finds himself at the end of the University summer term, broke and without any concrete plans. So, when he's offered the chance to join a group of students tasked clearing out Solace House, a large Victorian residence left to the University by a reclusive hoarder called Flayne, he jumps at it. The other students are a mixed bunch, but Alex quickly falls into a close friendship with the mercurial, red-headed Ella.

At first the house seems to be an ordinary, if grandiose, property. But as the team begin sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne's journals in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a strange place called Bewise, and - most mysteriously - his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions on how it might be reached.

As the students continue to sort through the detritus, one of Alex's companions becomes increasingly obsessed with the hidden secrets of Solace House, Flayne's missing mother, and the possibility that, if only they can decipher Flayne's increasingly unintelligible writings, they might gain knowledge beyond their wildest dreams. That is, assuming, they are willing to sacrifice everything.

Details

ISBN13: 9781805464594
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 512
Edition: Export/Airside
Publication Date: 12 May 2026
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.6(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Will Maclean is a screenwriter who has worked worked with people as varied as Alexander Armstrong, Miranda Hart, Al Murray and Tracey Ullman. His first novel, The Apparition Phase, was shortlisted for The McKitterick Prize. He lives in London with his wife and young daughter.

Reviews

An immensely fun brew of magic, mystery and mushrooms... If this stuff is your jam, you'll love it * Guardian *
A heady collision of gothic horror and campus novel... Unsettling, cerebral and deeply addictive. * The i Paper *
I adored it. The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House... A beautifully crafted book - rich, thoughtful, terrifying. I can't wait for people to read it * Nicholas Binge, author of Dissolution *
Precise, masterful and electric, Solace House sets the gold standard for contemporary speculative fiction... A triumphant mystery that will keep you gripped right to the very last page * Rebecca Ferrier, author of the Salt Bind *
Solace House is a sprawling, mind-bending, immersive mansion of a novel... This is a definite must read... and must re-read * Cailean Steed, author of Home *
An instant classic... It's the most gripping book I've read for months * Alison Rumfitt, author of Brainwyms *
There are moments of intense revelation in Solace House so vivid that I can still see them. This strange, surprising house is a hallucinatory delight * Aliya Whiteley, author of Skyward Inn *
Intensely eerie, characters you care about all the way through, twists and turns that take it into thriller territory until it turns into full-on cosmic horror... It kept me guessing until the very end * James Alistair Henry, author of Pagans *
Delightfully sinister... The best part is that you'll not realize you are lost until it's far too late to escape * Hiron Ennes, author of The Works of Vermin *
A delight... A wonderful sense of creeping dread, but the characters twinkle and pop off the page * Adam S. Leslie, author of Lost in the Garden *
There is something inhabited about Maclean's books - a total commitment to the horror and the humour, the beauty and the beastliness. Solace House is a haunted house story as full of hope as it is terror. It's as if David Nicholls' Sweet Sorrow and David Mitchell's Slade House had a grotesque offspring that's perpetually off its face on magic mushrooms. * Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of Almost Life *