This book is an historical fiction set in Victorian London and follows spiritual medium Beatrix Greene. She knows ghosts aren't real but she enjoys giving peace of mind to loved ones of the dead. She runs into James Walker, someone who has been publicly discrediting other fake mediums, and he offers her a job for a single night in the reportedly haunted Ashbury Manor to either prove or disprove the manor's haunting rumors. Beatrix accepts the job and during a séance, her true gift is awakened as is something else inside the manor. Beatrix, James, and a small group of others must try to discover the truth behind the past events at Ashbury Manor while struggling to stay alive.
First off, I loved the way this book was written. I don't love historical fiction and I find the writing in many of them to be somewhat stuffy or pretentious. However, since this was a horror/thriller historical fiction, I found the writing style to be a bit more modern and not so stuck-up. The narration felt very modern while the dialogue was more old fashioned - which worked surprisingly well and even highlighted the difference between what people were thinking/feeling to themselves and what they were able to tell others (all that Victorian propriety, you know). I thought the description of the séance scenes as well as one particularly gruesome death scene was spectacular. I'm not one to shy away from gory stuff, but the descriptions were so gory that I was both enthralled and grossed out. There were numerous times where the atmosphere in the manor changed based on the events taking place (a warm calming energy, a sinister cold energy, an angry firey energy) and the description and general narration really reflected the changes and the different energies that the characters were experiencing. It was a very atmospheric read and I heavily applaud the authors for their success in this area. I also couldn't tell that this was written by 3 different people, it was a very cohesive story.
I really liked the plot, but found it a bit predictable. I don't read much horror (although I do watch a lot of horror TV and movies), I lean more toward the thriller side of things, so I'm not sure if these just so happen to be common tropes that come up in the horror media I do consume or if the story was overall predictable. I found myself a lot going "that's a bad person for sure" or "well obviously that's where all the bad energy is coming from" and all of my assumptions turned out to be true. But regardless of that, it was still a very enjoyable read. I think the individual elements, while predictable, did fit together really nicely as an overall plot. I felt like this book was a perfect blend of The Shining plus Poltergeist plus Penny Dreadful. It was a pretty standard haunted house plot but was a fun read overall.
One of my least favorite parts (and a part that a lot of people were pointing out in their reviews on GoodReads) is the romance. It felt very forced in the book and didn't have enough lead up. When it first started, I thought it was the manor that was making the two characters act on their attractions. It almost seemed like the characters were in a daze of sorts when they were first romantically interacting. There is an event that happens later in the book as a direct result of the romance so I thought my initial feeling was correct that the characters were supernaturally affected by the house. However, by the end, that didn't seem to be the case as at least one of the characters did seem to still be romantically attracted to the other. If the romance wasn't caused by the house, then the whole thing seemed to develop incredibly fast (especially considering the times) and there was little chemistry built up between the characters prior to them becoming involved. So overall, the romance was the weakest part of the plot and I choose to believe it was the house the whole time and the one character then caught a case of the feelings which lingered after the fact.
The entire cast of characters I found were well developed and interesting. Each of them had their purpose and they all were necessary to propel the story forward. It was a small cast of only 5 characters but since it was a very small setting (just the manor) and a short time-span (just one night), I thought it was impressive that each character was so well implemented into the plot.
Pretty standard haunted house plot, great cast of characters, excellent writing and descriptions, romance felt a bit shoved in, but gave me some good spooky feels which is all I can really ask from a haunted house book in the first place.
198 pages
Thanks to NetGalley for providing the ARC. This book will be published on October 28, 2020.
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