Reviews

When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk (The Hotel #2) by Jennifer Anne Gordon

michellehogmire's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Review originally published here, at Reedsy Discovery: https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/when-the-sleeping-dead-still-talk-the-hotel-2-jennifer-anne-gordon#review

A troubled priest mourns a loss and uncovers the ghastly truth about his traumatic past in the second installment of "The Hotel" series. 

Sometimes, the mind is the most terrifying place of all--especially when we keep secrets from ourselves. Sussing out the truth from the lies, the facts from the fiction, is the predicament at the heart of Jennifer Anne Gordon's second novel in the historical Gothic horror "The Hotel" series, When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk.

The first book, From Daylight to Madness, introduced readers to Isabelle--a young woman who's forced into a rest cure on Dagger Island after the death of her newborn son. At the island's malevolent hotel, Isabelle meets a mysterious priest named Francis. When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk picks up right at the cliffhanger where the last book left off: a shocking incident has occurred that will change Francis' life forever. 

The rest of the novel explores Francis' shattered and fragmented mind, as he briefly returns home to Boston, the site of his appallingly abusive childhood. When Francis cycles inevitably back to the hotel, he realizes that he's lost days of time, and he's unsure if he can trust his own thoughts. The island's strange Doctor Hawthorne Hughes insists that mesmerism is the answer to these problems. After frightening deep dives into Francis' psyche, we learn what exactly led Francis to the hotel in the first place--as well as why the supposedly childless island has so many small cemetery plots.

This hallucinogenic novel reads like 200 pages of pure nightmare, with crooked rooms warped by the sea's moisture and grotesque crabs crawling from the mouths of drowned ghosts. In author Gordon's chilling world of "The Hotel," nothing can be taken at face value: family can love and help you, but they can also cause unthinkable harm and trauma; medical professionals can both cure your disease and bring about your illness in the first place; time can be reliable and constant, or it can shift and morph and hide your worst confidences. And, perhaps worst of all, you could find someone to love. Or, it could all be inside your head.