Book Review: POSSESSED

Title: Possessed

Author: Niki Valentine

Publisher: Sphere

Pages: 438

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

Emma Russell, a scholarship student, is admitted to the Conservatoire, a prestigious music school, where she is befriended by the Benoit twins, outgoing and assertive Sophie and shy and gentle Matilde. While both sisters are her friends, it is clear that Matilde shares a closer bond with Emma, and is more affectionate towards her, something that Sophie is not happy about. 

Then a fellow student, Henry Bailey-Ray falls in love with Matilde, and Sophie has one more reason to be unhappy.

When a masterclass at which Matilde is playing ends in disaster, the twins go home to recover. That is how Emma learns that Matilde slit her wrists in the bath. Emma is devastated, but Sophie is calm and flourishing, claiming that she has run out of energy for crying.

Meanwhile, Emma’s own life is a mess. She is seeing Matilde’s ghost everywhere, and is losing track of large chunks of time. Is grief causing her to lose her mind, or is she losing herself?

 

The story is written in the 3^rd person limited PoV of Emma. The story revolves around the three young women. The other characters rarely get much space. Even Henry, who is a romantic interest, is pale and almost lifeless.

 

I liked the descriptions of life at the music school, the endless recitals and performances, the music, the choir etc. They all made the setting more real.

The writing was good but largely prosaic. Given the subject, I would have expected something more literary or luminous in character. Also, there’s not much in terms of an eerie atmosphere. When Emma felt a chill, I, as a reader, didn’t.

Also, the book could have been thinner by about a 100 pages, without losing any intensity. At 438 pages, it is too long drawn, and for much of the time, nothing much seems to be changing. It is only in the last 100 pages that the pace picked up.

The cover with the glass pane drawing a perfect vertically symmetrical line down the face emphasized that Sophie and Matilde were identical twins and yet somehow very different.

Book Review: GHOST QUEEN

Title: Ghost Queen

Author: Mahtab Narsimhan

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers

Pages: 80

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

Malika and her boyfriend, Veer, have a popular vlogging channel called Ghost Queen where they travel to supposedly haunted places and reveal the truth about them to their fans. They haven’t encountered any ghostly presence yet. But maybe that’s about to change.

Now they are headed to Bhangarh, known as the most haunted place in India. Malika is certain that Bhangarh will catapult their vlogging channel to fame, bringing in subscribers and much needed ad revenue. Her family’s financial situation is precarious, and she hopes her gig will enable her to improve their financial situation.

Will Bhangarh change their fortunes? Or will it undo everything?

 

Ghost Queen takes the trope of the haunted site and gives it a modern spin with its reference to today’s culture of content creation. Both the main characters run a vlogging channel in the hope of creating content and making a living.

Incidentally, Bhangarh fort in India’s Rajasthan state does indeed have a reputation of being the most haunted place in the country.

The book is meant for kids who don’t enjoy reading, and so the writing is simple enough to hold their attention.

Kids will enjoy Malika and Veer. I found her slightly cliched, particularly with the father who had lost his job and the mother juggling two jobs to put food on the table. Malika didn’t mention why her father didn’t try to find another job. Or if she had any siblings etc. This sketchy information made it hard for me to invest in her.

She hopes to study abroad. But again, she doesn’t tell us why she can’t study here, or even how old she is.

The description of Malika, as seen in the reflection in the glass windowpane, is another imagery that has been done to death.

There were some grammatical errors that should be weeded out. But overall, the writing was easy and the descriptions were good. I hope kids enjoy this one.

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE DAY I DISAPPEARED

Title: The Day I Disappeared

Author: Brandi Reeds

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 319

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

Holly Gebhardt was abducted at age four from the park, even as best friend Katherine (Kitten) Hershey watched, and their mothers chatted nearby. Three months later, she was found at the same park, with no memory of her ordeal.

On the statement of Kitten, local handyman Alan Kohlbrook was arrested and sentenced to jail, while Holly’s mother, Cecily, struggled to live down the allegation that she was somehow involved. The drinking habit, fast turning into an addiction, didn’t help matters.

Twenty years later, she’s trying to lead a normal life. On-off boyfriend Derrion Sterling won’t let her have any peace of mind, and Kitten is engaged to her boyfriend, Eliot.

When police officer Jason Guidry wants to pick Holly’s brain about her abduction 20 years ago, she doesn’t want to be reminded about the past. But it seems that a child named Skylar Jane Kipniss has been abducted, and Holly’s memories might help the police to find her. Cecily is in a coma after meeting with an accident.

 

The book is written in the first person past tense PoVs of Holly and Cecily, the latter’s thoughts awhirl while in a coma. It is both a mystery and women’s fiction, with a very slight paranormal element. The mystery lies not just in the identity of Holly’s kidnapper. It also has to do with her mother’s secrets.

The book highlights the situation of those mothers to whom mothering doesn’t come easy. It doesn’t come naturally to all of us. We’re not all meant to spend our lives performing puppet shows and building with blocks and coloring in books and singing nonsensical songs to entertain our offspring. We see how judgemental society, and even the other mothers, can be when a woman doesn’t fit the accepted mould of a doting mother. Cecily was right to call them mommy-vultures.

Right off, you know which way the romance with Derrion will go.

I found both Holly and Cecily very likeable. I didn’t like Kitten. She was selfish and self-centred, always wanting to be the focus of everyone’s attention, and over-dramatising her own situation.

The men in this story, Matt Hershey, Kitten’s much older brother; Derrion and Eliot, are all much older than the women. And you’ll figure out why that is so.

I found this book very well written and engaging. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE SILENT PATIENT

Title: The Silent Patient

Author: Alex Michaelides

Publisher: Celadon Books

Pages: 336

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

Alicia Berenson, a famous painter, married to a famous fashion photographer, Gabriel, is living the good life. They have a beautiful home, a happy life together. And yet, one day, Alicia, seemingly without any provocation, shoots her husband at point-blank range, paints a picture, says the single word, Alcestis, and then refuses to speak a single word after that.

Alicia is sentenced to a secure facility called the Grove for treatment. Criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber applies for a job at the Grove. He is anxious to heal Alicia, nay, obsessed; it would be the greatest achievement of his career. Berenson, the eponymous Silent Patient, hasn’t spoken a word six years after shooting her husband to death. Her only conscious act since being caught has been a naked self-portrait with the title, Alcestis.

Theo needs to get at the bottom of Alicia’s motivation, why she committed that dreadful act of violence against a husband she loved so much. Meanwhile, no one knows about Theo’s motivation for wanting to uncover her motive.

 

The book is written in the first person past tense PoV of Theo and the first person past tense events in Alicia’s life, as mentioned in her diary. Theo’s account of his investigation into Alicia’s state of mind and the events in his own life alternate with Alicia’s account. There are a lot of parallels between these two first-person accounts. Theo says he was saved by Katie, just as Alicia writes in her diary that she was saved by Gabriel.

Given the author’s Greek parentage, there are Greek references galore. A character is of Greek ancestry. Alicia names her self-portrait, Alcestis, after a Greek mythical heroine by the same name. Unfortunately, the connection between the painting and the play is not explored well. The book is too busy with Theo’s musings.

 

Reworking the premise of Euripides’ play, Alcestis, was a clever idea. The premise was clever, the execution not so much. There are huge plot holes littering the book. For a long time, we are deliberately misled with Theo investigating people who have some association with Alicia. There was no need to do this.

Alicia’s reasons for keeping silent make no sense at all. Why would she keep silent, then write a diary about what happened, and hide the diary, and succeed in smuggling it into the mental health facility, then succeed in keeping it hidden there for over six years?

How are we supposed to believe this? Alicia kept a diary hidden for six years. The six years she spent in a psychiatric treatment facility, and yet no one seemed to know anything about it. No one did anything about it. No one even read it.

It was amazing that no one checked her stuff in six years. Theo was a doctor and yet his stuff was checked regularly, but the patient’s possessions weren’t checked even once?

Theo came across as insufferable and know-it-all. The other characters in the Grove aren’t any better. All of them seem like stereotypes

It was odd that nobody could remember the name of Alicia’s doctor. Every time characters spoke of the doctor, they said they had forgotten the name. How convenient!

Also, Theo keeps following his wife’s lover, but never catches sight of his face. What is the likelihood of that? At some point, he should have seen the guy’s face, right?

When a certain character injects Alicia with a lethal dose of morphine, instead of seeking help, she sits down to write pages and pages about what actually happened.

Theo isn’t very quick on the uptake. The silent patient hands him her diary and for the greater part of the book he wonders what he should do with it. I wanted to tell you, you nutter, balance it on your head, so you can improve your posture.

Book Review: MYTHOS: THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION

Title: Mythos: The Illustrated Edition

Author: Stephen Fry

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Pages: 512

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was my first time reading a book by Stephen Fry, but it won’t be the last. The style of this book was unlike anything I’ve ever read. The author successfully introduced me to Greek mythology while connecting disparate elements together with a distinct voice that was friendly and humorous.

The book began with a detailed family tree, which became clear as I read on. The narrative was divided into The Beginning Part 1 and 2, which detailed the Greek Creation Myth, the birth of the gods, their passions, egos and mischief. The Toys of Zeus, Part 1 and 2, featured mortals, because the gods obviously treat human beings as their playthings.

This book was a delight from start to finish. The myths were written in delightful prose, a tongue-in-cheek style, successfully surprising, educating and entertaining us in the same breath. I was able to see instances of Greek myths and their place in the English language, besides subjects like Science, History, Mythology, Metaphor, music, semantics, etymology, cinema, art and computer hardware.

The illustrations were beautiful, and the writing incorporated just the right sprinkling of psychological insights. The footnotes were a joy.

Along the way, we are treated to the origin myths for how honey, medicine, alcohol and spiders came to be, how human beings got fire, and how the seasons came about. There are so many ideas and concepts from literature, fiction and pop culture that this book helped me understand in the context of their origin story. The author even points out specific instances of the origin of sex, incest and murder.

Overall, the Greek gods were an unruly lot, always getting into trouble and behaving in ways that they shouldn’t have. There’s a lot of feasting and cavorting.

There were specific instances of the English language being enriched by Greek mythology. For instance, the word, hermetically sealed, owes itself to Hermes.

The characters I recognized from literature and other readings included Aphrodite, Zeus, Prometheus, Hera, Hermes, Apollo, Midas, Sisyphus, Persephone, Pandora, Hades, Cupid, Narcissus, Hero and Leander, Pygmalion and Poseidon. The list is a long one, and reminded me of the stories I’d enjoyed without considering the mythic culture they belonged to.

The author even links the myths to children’s animation classics like Tom and Jerry. With all that knowledge, he doesn’t come across as a know-it-all. And that was the selling point of this book.

It was a special delight to read about my own namesake under Artemis, one of whose names is Cynthia. I was aware that my name meant the Greek goddess of the moon, but this detailed picture was welcome.

While the book was remarkably detailed and inventive, I understood that there were many myths that the book had not covered. Icarus was one Greek myth that I recall that did not feature here.

The author recommends a reading of theoi.com for a further reading of 1500 pages of text and for a glimpse of 1200 images.

 

(I read this book on Edelweiss. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Edelweiss.) 

Book Review: THE WORLDS OF GEORGE RR MARTIN

Title: The Worlds of George RR Martin

Author: Tom Huddleston

Publisher: Frances Lincoln

Pages: 208

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I must confess that I haven’t ever read anything by George RR Martin, nor have I seen the series that it inspired. My excuse is that I don’t like fantasy.

But after reading this book about his inspiration, I’m now inspired by Martin’s prolific ability and more equipped in my own journey as a writer.

In this book, the author introduces us to the breath of Martin’s inspiration, stemming from his voracious reading of history, comic-book characters, the works of great science and fantasy authors, cartography and the study of atlases, among other things. The author describes Martin as a voracious gatherer of knowledge, of experience, or story.

The book is supplemented with an eclectic collection of photos of Martin’s childhood home, various paintings of subjects that inspired him etc. Among others, there are photos of him at the signing table at the 2014 world science Fiction Convention, as also the cast of Game of Thrones on HBO and covers of the first editions of his books. There are photos of paintings depicting the history on which his oeuvre is based.

 

The book details his life, education, publishing successes and failures and his tryst with writing for TV, besides the influences on his life and writing and the episodes of The Twilight Zone that he scripted.

It’s fantastic to read about how Martin’s books grew and the powerful storytelling that drove that growth. The book explores Martin’s journey to writing the book and the Game of Thrones series, their production, impact and relationship with the source novels. the Epilogue talks about the astonishing success of the book and its adaptation to the silver screen (did you know that the first episode scored 2.2 million viewers on the first night itself?).

The book was divided into chapters, named after locations in the book, such as the Wall, Winterfell and the Iron Islands. There is no fixed format to the layout of the pages. Quotes accompanying photos take up whole pages, sometimes even double spreads.

Ideas are cheap … it’s the execution that is all-important.

We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things. We have the angels and demons inside of us, and our lives are a succession of choices.

The world is one great web, and a man dare not touch a single strand lest all the others tremble.

Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world.

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time … they have the whole things designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed ... They know if they planted a fantasy seed or a mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.

Never having read the books or watched the series, and being largely unfamiliar with European history, which we didn’t study at school, I wasn’t always able to figure out what was happening. There was a lot I couldn’t relate to, but the author’s style was engaging.

I got a sense of the depth of reading and research that informed Martin’s work, in terms of history, the mythology of Norse, Saxon and other cultures, the architecture and geography of the regions in which the books are set, and Martin’s own vast reading of historical fiction, fantasy and horror.

I want to point out just one error in the book. The author points out that the name given to a particular “city’s distinctive elephant-drawn carts, hathay, echoes the Hindu word for elephant, hathi.” The right word here is Hindi. Hindi is a language. Hinduism is a religion followed by Hindu people.

 

Towards the end, the author tells us about how far the books are inspired by the real world. The threat of "Winter is coming" in the book is synonymous with the real danger of climate change in the real world.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE MURDERER'S APE (Sally Jones #2)

 

Title: The Murderer's Ape

Author: Jakob Wegelius

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pages: 605

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Henry Koskela, Chief to Sally Jones, the gorilla he rescued, is arrested for the murder of Aphonse Morro. He has motive. It was Morro that had sent him on a misadventure that caused him to lose his beloved boat, the Hudson Queen, and their hard-earned savings. But Koskela has no way to prove his innocence.

Only Sally Jones knows that her Chief has done nothing wrong. That he did not seek to kill Morro. That Morro fell by accident. But what can an ape do? Particularly when powerful people are determined to keep him imprisoned forever.

Now Sally Jones is on the run from the powerful men who want to bring anarchy to Portugal. Luckily, she meets Ana Molina, a young woman with an angelic voice who works in a shoe factory. Soon Ana’s friends become the friends of Sally Jones, but danger is never far away from Sally Jones.

 

The story is told in the first person past tense PoV of Sally Jones, not Sally. Always Sally Jones. It is, in fact, being typed out by her on a typewriter, long after the incidents described in the book are over.

This book started well. I didn’t realise who the narrator was until the last line on the first page when she said that her fur is itchy with coal dust. As a character, Sally Jones had great potential. She is literate, she can type, repair stuff, play chess and she serves as first engineer on a ship.

 

As a rule, I don’t read fantasy, but this one was targeted at children and promised to be warm and fuzzy. So I made an exception. The characters were all sweet, but not really unforgettable. Sally Jones herself didn’t live up to her potential. The adversaries weren’t really evil, in keeping with the target audience. This is children’s fiction after all.

The writing was sweet, especially the scenes where Sally Jones meets the Chief after their prolonged separation.

The writer does a good job with the time period. Set in the early 20^th century, there are accordions, motor boats, steamers, typewriters etc. Illustrations of these would have helped young readers to get an understanding of older technologies.

But there was tremendous room for improvement. For the greater part of the book, the Chief was in jail, serving a sentence of 25 years in prison. Considering that the Chief and Sally Jones were the main characters, they both should have a greater role to play in the book. As it is, the story picks up the thread of the plot only with about 100 pages to spare.

With the Chief stuck in jail, Sally Jones is sent off on a grand adventure, heading off to Egypt and spending a long spell in India, beating a king at chess and being his confidante, but not really advancing the plot of the story. Given that the title of the book is The Murderer’s Ape, I thought that Sally Jones should have been shown to be doing more to get the Chief released.

It’s a fantasy after all. If the author could make her literate, able to understand English, why not get her to grunt some words? If she is good at “fixing broken things”, why not make her use that skill to enable the Chief’s release rather than spending time fixing broken accordions with nothing to break the monotony for the Chief. The poor guy spends years in prison.

Also, at 605 pages, it is much too long and the pace far too slow. Young ones are bound to lose interest in such a heavy tome. I do think the author could have done more to bring out the themes of love and friendship, loyalty and innocence. As it is, with Sally Jones travelling around the world, those themes get diluted a fair bit.

The illustrations, the grainy pencil sketches were charming, quaint and inviting. 

(I read this book on Edelweiss. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Edelweiss.) 

Book Review: A LIE FOR A LIE

Title: A Lie for a Lie

Author: Jane Buckingham

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

Pages: 256

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Sabrina Richards, a high school student, is determined to get into Harvard, in honour of her deceased mother whose dream it was to study there. When her application is deferred, it’s one more blow, given that she is already stressed out about the fact that her father’s girlfriend, Kaye, and the latter’s daughter, Parker, might move into their home. She’s also worked up about the drama of former best friend, Brooke. Brooke, Sabrina and Emily have been best friends since elementary school. But now Brooke is a Cool Girl, one of the high school elite. Only best friend, Emily remains by her side, until Sabrina learns that Emily has been admitted into Harvard, and it wasn’t even her dream.

Meanwhile, there is an anonymous person at Milford High, @Revenge, who is adept at helping the students get revenge. The person reaches out to Sabrina and, in a moment of weakness, Sabrina gives in to the desire to act out against Emily. But now @Revenge is asking her to do something worse. To prank the school’s star basketball player. And Sabrina dare not refuse, not when @Revenge holds the cards. But

The only thing she can do is find out who @Revenge is before more people get hurt. Or before @Revenge outs her own secret.

 

The book is written in the first-person present tense PoV of @Revenge and in the third-person limited present tense PoV of Sabrina. The Prologue in this book was a rare instance of a Prologue done well. It piqued my interest and forced me into the story.

I wish the author had written more chapters from the PoV of @Revenge. They were more interesting than Sabrina’s limited PoV, and made Sabrina look rather bland.

The first part of the book was an overly long introduction. Things kicked up a notch only at the 38 percent mark. I was plodding through for the purpose of this review.

I didn’t like Sabrina or Emily or any of the characters. For that matter, we don’t really get to know any of the characters. The only character I felt drawn towards was Charlie, Emily’s twin.

Sabrina drones on and on about Harvard. The excessive use of tell, with hardly any flashbacks, prevents us from getting into the story. The device of the dead mother’s letter is weak.

There were some questions that didn’t have answers. How did a basketball court full of people not register the bottle in Finn’s hand? How did the police not look for it, nor think of checking it for fingerprints? The bottle wasn’t even mentioned. There were no details about how the crime against Finn, or any of the others, was carried out, not even at the end.

Sabrina asks a teacher, Mrs Esry, if another character, who she suspects of being @Revenge, couldn’t have made another social media account or used another phone, both of which activities are possible, the teacher says, it is impossible. When Sabrina presses her for an answer, she evades the question and answers that he is in the clear, without answering what evidence she has to support that claim. It’s just, Believe me, we’ve checked. How lame!

Sabrina is just as daft. Even when the antagonist admits to being @Revenge, Sabrina doesn’t understand what the admission means.

There were some issues with the incorrect use of tenses, which should have been weeded out.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: DINNER PARTY: A TRAGEDY

Title: Dinner Party: A Tragedy

Author: Sarah Gilmartin

Publisher: One

Pages: 260

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

It would be really hard to describe the plot of Dinner Party; the book is a loose description of the lives of the members of the Gleeson family, the tragedies that befall them, and the recollections associated with all the characters.

 

The book begins with Kate Gleeson inviting older brothers Peter and Ray, and Ray’s wife, Liz, to dinner to mark the 16^th death anniversary of her fraternal twin, Elaine. But it isn’t this dinner that gives this book its name. That honour goes to another dinner, a Christmas dinner, hosted by their mother at their childhood home. The game of charades that the family plays on one of these dinners is very telling.

But the dinner party that opens the book is the one that opens the can of worms, at least for us readers. The family has been wallowing in it for a long time. But it is the dinner party at the close of the book that gets the book to end with a bang.

 

The writing was good, but there was a sense of disjointedness, in the absence of a chronological timeline.  

One gets a sense of the siblings being stuck in their lives, not only on account of the sibling they have lost but also on account of their mother whose overbearing personality throws a dark shadow over their lives.

I couldn’t really warm to any of the characters. Kate was morose and the other characters, despite having moved on with their lives, still seem held back somehow. Liz was an obnoxious person.

Through the recollections, one gets a sense of how Kate felt about Elaine, certainly about how Elaine felt about Kate. Kate, older by six minutes, finds herself left behind by Elaine who has her periods first, and makes new friends, leaving behind Kate, who still feels like a child and on the outside of things, compared to her outgoing sister.

The book is more like a detailed character sketch of all the members of the Gleeson family. Mom Bernadette has her own drama, and the others are tortured by her mad tantrums as well as her crazy silences. Everything is always about her; her grief, her sorrow, her needs. If it isn’t, she succeeds in drawing attention to herself.

Kate suffers from eating disorders and a vague sense of emptiness after the death of her twin.

The book is very demanding of the reader. It demands patience while it reveals itself. Given its lack of a plot, it leaves us struggling to hold on to something.

The book cover, with its broken plate, indicates that the dinner has broken convention, and that one by one, the adult children show their mother that they are tired of skirting around her feelings. 

(I read this book on Edelweiss. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Edelweiss.) 

 

Book Review: THE RAVENSWOOD WITCH

Title: The Ravenswood Witch

Author: Jenni Keer

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Pages: 354

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The book begins with an unnamed woman, fleeing from some danger, who collides with a stranger and ends up spraining her foot. The stranger, Marcus Greybourne, is the owner of the massive and ill-reputed house, Ravenswood. He convinces the constable that the unnamed woman is his wife, Luna Greybourne, not the criminal wanted for murder that the constable is seeking.

Marcus offers the woman protection while her badly sprained foot heals. In return, he requests her to pretend to be his wife for a brief period. She accepts the offer.

While she pretends to be Luna Greybourne, there is no sign of the real Mrs Greybourne. Soon the new Mrs Greybourne discovers that there is a very real sense of danger in and around Ravenswood. There are scratches on the walls and marks of devil worship have been gouged into the wood of the bedpost. Then she hears talk of the old witch that is supposed to live in the woods behind the house, who supposedly curses people and dances naked, performing acts of devil worship. Until the housekeeper, Mrs Webber, informs her that Luna Greybourne is the witch.  

Her only friend is Bran, a raven she nurses to life, and Mr Findlay, a medicine man who uses herbs and potions, along with medicines, a man who was once friends with the real Luna Greybourne, and promises to help the imposter, whenever she might need his aid.

As she eases into her new life, getting closer to Marcus, she wonders if she could stay with him forever. But she knows that can't be. The danger is getting closer, and time is running out.

The book is written in the 3rd person omniscient past tense PoV and in the 3^rd person past tense limited PoV of Eloise Haughton, a rich and, true to her name, haughty girl whose slightly obsessive love for Daniel Thornbury, a working-class man, ends up setting the plot of this story in motion. The story of Eloise was written in an affectionate, teasing tone, that reminded me of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The author builds up an aura of intrigue and mystique with her writing. The Ravenswood scenes, in particular, were written with a deliciously creepy air. Thankfully, the love story, with a markedly different tone, doesn’t appear intrusive at all.

Slowly, Bran, Mrs Webber and the two Lunas grew on me. Luna, the Ravenswood witch, though physically absent, except in flashbacks and recollections, was nevertheless drawn well and felt alive.

Eloise is a little selfish and overindulged and I didn’t like her at all. I liked her even less at the end of the book. Mr Findlay is referred to by everyone, including the 3^rd person narrator, as ‘cunning’, which I found odd, until I discovered its archaic meaning, possessing some occult knowledge, a meaning that has now fallen into disuse.

The writing was good and held my interest. Sample this quote:
When your whole world had been destroyed, you clung to any small fragment of solid ground.

What I liked about this book was the deftness with which the author sneaked the twist in.

There were some errors though. Daniel is first described as 19 years old, and then as 25, without us getting any sense of the years having passed from the time Eloise first meets him to the end of that strand of the story.

A crucial plot point in the past, relating to the murder investigation, doesn’t get resolved; I thought we needed closure on that.

I also found the pace too slow for a greater part of the book. Things took much longer to heat up than they should have. For a long time, it was business as usual.

Also, I couldn’t understand why Marcus and the second Mrs Greybourne continued with their charade when they were alone.

The book ended on a note of hope and renewal that felt good for everyone, though Mrs Webber might have different thoughts on the issue. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)