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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Probably more like 3.5 stars. I enjoyed it, the suspense, the way the house seems haunted but isn't, the constant guessing about what happened. The ending is a little unsatisfying only because, without spoiling it, I felt like justice could have been served better, but that's how life works sometimes. Better than a nearly wrapped up ending where everyone is happy.
mysterious
medium-paced
I really enjoyed the audiobook, the narration was great and so was the pace. There were parts of the book that didn't go far, but I think with any southern gothic you have to insert some small creepy story lines just to keep the mystery and the dark feel. They don't all have to lead to something. I enjoyed it for what it was and really do enjoy this authors work.
Subtle, well-written, and difficult to put down.
Arrowood is the most ornate and grand of the historical houses that line the Mississippi River in southern Iowa. But the house has a mystery it has never revealed: It’s where Arden Arrowood’s younger twin sisters vanished on her watch twenty years ago—never to be seen again. After the twins’ disappearance, Arden’s parents divorced and the Arrowoods left the big house that had been in their family for generations. And Arden’s own life has fallen apart: She can’t finish her master’s thesis, and a misguided love affair has ended badly. She has held on to the hope that her sisters are still alive, and it seems she can’t move forward until she finds them. When her father dies and she inherits Arrowood, Arden returns to her childhood home determined to discover what really happened to her sisters that traumatic summer.
Arden’s return to the town of Keokuk—and the now infamous house that bears her name—is greeted with curiosity. But she is welcomed back by her old neighbor and first love, Ben Ferris, whose family, she slowly learns, knows more about the Arrowoods’ secrets and their small, closed community than she ever realized. With the help of a young amateur investigator, Arden tracks down the man who was the prime suspect in the kidnapping. But the house and the surrounding town hold their secrets close—and the truth, when Arden finds it, is more devastating than she ever could have imagined.
It as a haunting story full of mystery. Arden works through her past to uncover the mystery of the disappearance of her twin sisters. It is sad and eye-opening but her working through her past and solving the mystery will help her move forward in the future. It was an enchanting mystery story that I truly enjoyed reading.
Arden’s return to the town of Keokuk—and the now infamous house that bears her name—is greeted with curiosity. But she is welcomed back by her old neighbor and first love, Ben Ferris, whose family, she slowly learns, knows more about the Arrowoods’ secrets and their small, closed community than she ever realized. With the help of a young amateur investigator, Arden tracks down the man who was the prime suspect in the kidnapping. But the house and the surrounding town hold their secrets close—and the truth, when Arden finds it, is more devastating than she ever could have imagined.
It as a haunting story full of mystery. Arden works through her past to uncover the mystery of the disappearance of her twin sisters. It is sad and eye-opening but her working through her past and solving the mystery will help her move forward in the future. It was an enchanting mystery story that I truly enjoyed reading.
stilted and one dimensional characters and relationships. ending was unsatisfying. some serious similarities with Gillian Flynn's "dark places". different stories with similar story telling devices
I couldn't put down this Gothic mystery about the disappearance of Arden Arrowood's twin baby sisters when she was a young girl. definitely got my heart pounding a few times and had me guessing in the wrong direction a few times. overall very readable and entertaining.
Atmospheric and mesmerizing. The pace is delicious; slow enough to savor, yet still a page-turner. More literary than most mysteries, less twisted than most thrillers, more realistic than genre fiction.
Like novelists of Appalachia, McHugh convincingly portrays decaying wealth in contrast with poverty.
Questions of trust--in others, in memory--pepper this novel, in which the familiar is off-kilter and intuition wraps itself in thin cloaks of optimism and transparent, haunting grief.
Keokuk makes a marvelous setting, though it will strike so many as familiar, for there are myriad river towns of former industry and society in our nation.
I would have relished another 50-100 pages worth of characterization and tangled relationship-building, though that would likely have tampered with the pace I so enjoyed.
My trifling complaint is that I would have liked knowning what the minister wanted to say. There are a few minor signposts with incomplete messages, such as that.
If I had to choose a favorite between this and The Weight of Blood, I couldn't. They're both riveting, with settings that steer the story and lost-girl characters who seek truth, and remain in mind long after the last page.
I look forward to whatever McHugh concocts next.
4.5
Like novelists of Appalachia, McHugh convincingly portrays decaying wealth in contrast with poverty.
Questions of trust--in others, in memory--pepper this novel, in which the familiar is off-kilter and intuition wraps itself in thin cloaks of optimism and transparent, haunting grief.
Keokuk makes a marvelous setting, though it will strike so many as familiar, for there are myriad river towns of former industry and society in our nation.
I would have relished another 50-100 pages worth of characterization and tangled relationship-building, though that would likely have tampered with the pace I so enjoyed.
My trifling complaint is that I would have liked knowning what the minister wanted to say. There are a few minor signposts with incomplete messages, such as that.
If I had to choose a favorite between this and The Weight of Blood, I couldn't. They're both riveting, with settings that steer the story and lost-girl characters who seek truth, and remain in mind long after the last page.
I look forward to whatever McHugh concocts next.
4.5
Since McHugh is a local author who showed so much promise in her first novel, I am rooting for her to succeed and was eager to read her next work. Unfortunately, I found this to be rather underwhelming and poorly paced. The first half is quite slow as McHugh painstakingly sets the stage with an abundance of superfluous details that don't add much to the story. I determinedly stuck with it, sure that the momentum would pick up during the second half, which it barely did. Although I wouldn't label the plot as predictable, very little of what happened surprised me. There is one shocking revelation near the end, but McHugh disappointingly negates the possibility almost immediately. I failed to feel any connection to Arden and wasn't interested in her tragic backstory, finding her to be a rather aimless blank slate. The tone of the book felt off and like it was aimed toward a young adult audience despite the protagonist being in her late twenties. McHugh may very well end up penning something truly amazing, but she has some problematic kinks to work out of her system first.
Well this book was a disappointment. I so throughly enjoyed McHugh’s previous book and I wanted desperately to feel that same connection here. It’s not here. This book is disjointed, slow, and inevitably extremely predictable in every way. Reasons to read... the setting. That’s it. 2/5 from me.