Small Fires by Ronnie Turner

 

Small Fires by Ronnie Turner.

Published 27th February 2025 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

Evil runs through this cursed island
And these wicked sisters are about to make it burn...

When sisters Lily and Della Pedley are persecuted for the shocking murder of their parents, they flee from their home in Cornwall to a remote and unnamed island in Scotland – an island known for its strange happenings, but far away from the whispers and prying eyes of strangers.

Lily is terrified of what her sister will might do next, and she soon realises that they have arrived at a place where nothing is as it seems. A bitterness runs through the land like poison, and the stories told by the islanders seem to be far more than folklore.

Della settles in too easily, the island folk drawn to her strangeness, but Lily is plagued by odd and unsettling dreams, and as an annual festival draws nigh, she discovers that she has far more to fear than she could ever have imagined. Or does she…?

Chilling, atmospheric and utterly hypnotic, Small Fires is a contemporary gothic novel that examines possession, generational trauma, female rage, and the perilous bonds of family – an unsettling reminder that the stories we tell can be deadly…

Midsommar meets Midnight Mass in a folk horror, modern gothic masterpiece.

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Sisters Della and Lily Pedley flee their home in Cornwall searching for refuge from the gossip that insinuates they killed their parents. Their destination is a tiny unnamed island off the coast of Scotland where they hope to find peace, but they are unprepared for quite how bizarre the island people are - people those on the mainland call the God-Forgotten.

The girls are eyed with suspicion from the start, and the whispers about their wickedness, that they hoped to leave behind, follow them still. Kindly Silas, who lives apart on the high moors, is the only one who seems free of the strange beliefs that keep the Folk tethered to their fear of The Warden, their own personal Devil who legend tells lives under the land.

As the annual festival approaches, the Folk are drawn to Della's strangeness, sensing a kindred spirit in her monstrous frame, while petite, blonde Lily is plagued with vivid dreams. Silas is determined to save Lily, but this is a place where things are not quite what they seem.

Ronnie Turner's Small Fires is a deeply unsettling journey into Gothic horror, and the way she weaves folklore and dark fairy tales into a modern setting makes it all the more eerie. Imagine a pair of sisters made famous by the media frenzy around deaths which may, or may not, be suspicious, thrown into a small community setting rife with Wicker Man vibes, and then multiply the stakes by making those sisters more dangerous than the odd people they make their new home with... it is a seductive premise, and Turner casts a perturbing spell upon you as she makes the most of it.

The story unfolds through the narratives of Lily and Silas, switching back and forth between their accounts of events in the present, and stories about their disturbing sibling relationships in the past - Lily with Della, and Silas with his sister Gaia. The pace is almost achingly slow, with meandering storylines, and scenes that bleed into one another, leaving you reeling from the legacy of the past as a new disorienting turn reveals itself. 

Everyone in this story is damaged by trauma, and Turner uses the blurring of stories and memories to cloud your mind with an orgy of dysfunction and violence that misleads and misdirects to perfection. Is this a place where the boundary between reality and the otherworldly has been worn thin by generations of bloodshed? Are these people wicked, misguided, subsumed by mass delusion, or being controlled? Are the sisters quite what they seem? Turner holds her secrets fast, and the twists, when they come are corkers.

She layers her themes quite spectacularly too - scarred psyches, manipulation, love-hate relationships, the bonds of familial duty, the power of suggestion, and most strikingly, female rage. The way she uses the notion and imagery around 'small fires' that can set the world aflame is simply delicious.

Like So Pretty before it (which is cleverly referenced in this story), this is a novel which takes you to the dark side of human nature... and leaves a piece of itself behind. Probably best to read this one in the daylight hours! More please!

Small Fires is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats. You can support indie publishing by buying direct from Orenda Books HERE.

About the author:

Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in Dorset with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Ronnie is a Waterstones Senior Bookseller.