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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
I not fond of giving low reviews to books because I feel like it undermines the authors hard work and sometimes a book just isn’t for you. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad book.
I came about this book after book-swap on World Book Day. I’m glad to have given it a read, but it just wasn’t for me. I just didn’t feel like anything happened. At all. Any ‘revelations’ felt completely underwhelming to me and the ending felt mismatched. Whenever I felt it might get going, it didn’t.
I’m sure there is an appeal to people who prefer a much softer thriller. But this just wasn’t it for me.
I came about this book after book-swap on World Book Day. I’m glad to have given it a read, but it just wasn’t for me. I just didn’t feel like anything happened. At all. Any ‘revelations’ felt completely underwhelming to me and the ending felt mismatched. Whenever I felt it might get going, it didn’t.
I’m sure there is an appeal to people who prefer a much softer thriller. But this just wasn’t it for me.
This atmospheric novel follows Hetty, a National History Museum curator as she moves a vast collection of rare taxidermy to creepy Lockwood Manor to avoid the Blitz and meets Lucy, the glamorous but troubled daughter of the house plagued by terrifying nightmares about the Manor.
Throw in a mentally ill dead mother, a gaslighting lord of the manor, a cold housekeeper, and animals that keep going missing for a story that remixes classic gothic tropes to brilliant effect. Is there really a beast stalking the manor? Are there really secret rooms full of horrible things? Could I love femme seduction scenes any more? And will Hetty and Lucy get their happy ever after? These questions had me on tenterhooks the whole way through. If you love a queer spooky story, I thoroughly recommend this book.
Throw in a mentally ill dead mother, a gaslighting lord of the manor, a cold housekeeper, and animals that keep going missing for a story that remixes classic gothic tropes to brilliant effect. Is there really a beast stalking the manor? Are there really secret rooms full of horrible things? Could I love femme seduction scenes any more? And will Hetty and Lucy get their happy ever after? These questions had me on tenterhooks the whole way through. If you love a queer spooky story, I thoroughly recommend this book.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content
3.75. If I was being objective about this, it’s a 3.5. Enjoyment-wise, I would give it a 4 or slightly higher. I’m sharing this because some of the issues like pacing and some of the mystery pay-off are glaring. I do think the sense of atmosphere, themes, and character work far outweigh those issues. It’s all about expectations with this one. Expect a slower paced, but beautifully written gothic story. There are some spooky moments, but this is not horror. There is a very sweet, sapphic relationship that develops, but it’s far from a romance. I very much enjoyed my time and I plan to read more from this author, but I can easily see why your mileage may vary with this one.
Incredibly slow with a heaping side of lurid tossed in towards the end. YMMV but very much a meh read for me.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As the storm clouds gather over Europe, and war seems inevitable, the Natural History Museum in London takes the decision to evacuate many of its precious exhibits to the countryside. Thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright finds herself raised from the ranks of volunteer to accompany the museum's mammal collection to Lockwood Manor, where it will be housed for the duration of the war.
Hetty is concerned about her ability to keep the collection safe, and the residents of Lockwood Manor make her task an arduous one. Self-important widower Lord Lockwood appears to view the specimens as part of his own private collection, and the household staff are unfriendly and uncooperative. Her only solace is the friendship she feels developing between herself and Lord Lockwood's fragile daughter Lucy.
Tales of hauntings and curses nip at Hetty's nerves, and when some of the specimens seem to move on their own, and others begin to go missing, she starts to doubt her own senses. Does danger really stalk these dark corridors, and are the tales of madness within the Lockwood family true? Lucy certainly seems traumatised, and when the bombs begin to fall on Lockwood, Hetty is slowly consumed by love for this tormented young woman, and the need to protect her from the ghosts of her past.
Jane Healy brings alive twentieth century Gothic in this story, by mixing classic elements of feelings of underlying menace and things that go bump in the night, with an authentically imagined World War II setting. Lockwood Manor with its faded grandeur, and resident dysfunctional family closely connected with scandal and gossip, make for the perfect haunted mansion, and the creepy, otherworldly vibes are ramped up to the max by the addition of a collection of weird and wonderful stuffed animals, and all the ephemera that go with them from the dusty halls of the Natural History Museum.
Healy plays with the notions of hauntings in a psychological, and literal sense, through the lives of Hetty and Lucy, who alternate in narrating the story. They find kinship among the exhibits when they are thrown together, and friendship inevitably develops into something more. Healy portrays their growing closeness beautifully, while weaving around them threads of shocking family secrets, and mysteries to be solved with impressive skill for a debut.
Themes of being trapped and chased, especially where male control is concerned, run through the story, and these work really well with the topics of women's freedom and forbidden love that are central to the novel. There are also lovely echoes of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, but from the point of view of Bertha Rochester, and the unscrupulous housekeeper definitely has a du Maurier's Mrs Danvers vibe, all of which add to the discomfiting atmosphere admirably.
The narration of the audio book by Sarah Lambie is handled well, and with expression, but her voices for Hetty and Lucy are almost identical, which does make for moments of confusion. I think in a story like this, with two central characters driving the action, it would have been lifted by having two individual voice actors - one for Hetty and one for Lucy - but overall the narration is very enjoyable.
It is a fine example of Gothic reimagined, well paced and thoroughly compelling, and I look forward to reading more from Jane Healy.
Hetty is concerned about her ability to keep the collection safe, and the residents of Lockwood Manor make her task an arduous one. Self-important widower Lord Lockwood appears to view the specimens as part of his own private collection, and the household staff are unfriendly and uncooperative. Her only solace is the friendship she feels developing between herself and Lord Lockwood's fragile daughter Lucy.
Tales of hauntings and curses nip at Hetty's nerves, and when some of the specimens seem to move on their own, and others begin to go missing, she starts to doubt her own senses. Does danger really stalk these dark corridors, and are the tales of madness within the Lockwood family true? Lucy certainly seems traumatised, and when the bombs begin to fall on Lockwood, Hetty is slowly consumed by love for this tormented young woman, and the need to protect her from the ghosts of her past.
Jane Healy brings alive twentieth century Gothic in this story, by mixing classic elements of feelings of underlying menace and things that go bump in the night, with an authentically imagined World War II setting. Lockwood Manor with its faded grandeur, and resident dysfunctional family closely connected with scandal and gossip, make for the perfect haunted mansion, and the creepy, otherworldly vibes are ramped up to the max by the addition of a collection of weird and wonderful stuffed animals, and all the ephemera that go with them from the dusty halls of the Natural History Museum.
Healy plays with the notions of hauntings in a psychological, and literal sense, through the lives of Hetty and Lucy, who alternate in narrating the story. They find kinship among the exhibits when they are thrown together, and friendship inevitably develops into something more. Healy portrays their growing closeness beautifully, while weaving around them threads of shocking family secrets, and mysteries to be solved with impressive skill for a debut.
Themes of being trapped and chased, especially where male control is concerned, run through the story, and these work really well with the topics of women's freedom and forbidden love that are central to the novel. There are also lovely echoes of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, but from the point of view of Bertha Rochester, and the unscrupulous housekeeper definitely has a du Maurier's Mrs Danvers vibe, all of which add to the discomfiting atmosphere admirably.
The narration of the audio book by Sarah Lambie is handled well, and with expression, but her voices for Hetty and Lucy are almost identical, which does make for moments of confusion. I think in a story like this, with two central characters driving the action, it would have been lifted by having two individual voice actors - one for Hetty and one for Lucy - but overall the narration is very enjoyable.
It is a fine example of Gothic reimagined, well paced and thoroughly compelling, and I look forward to reading more from Jane Healy.