A review by bookforthought
Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe

dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I read this book in full spooky season because the blurb made it sound perfect: gothic atmosphere, a remote estate, secrets, witchcraft... basically spooky gold. And yet, when I finished it, I found myself disappointed and left wanting, although I couldn't really articulate why. I gave myself some time to process (a little longer in truth than I'd planned to be honest), trying to get some clarity but several weeks on I'm still no further in this.

Starting off with the positives, the atmosphere is spot on. The author does a great job with the settings and captures the dark, cold weather particularly well. I could almost feel the cold seeping through the page (and my headphones for the parts I listened to on audiobook). The settings are vivid and the tension is palpable, which is the main reason I didn't abandon this halfway through, because for the rest I was fairly disappointed.

The characters were profoundly unlikeable, and not in a good, interesting way. The main character, a woman trying to leave her past behind as a mysterious event led to her losing her job in London, had all the cards to be an interesting, complex character but ended up being quite flat for me. The rest of the cast is entirely forgettable, and I actually mixed them up pretty frequently aside from the mansion owner, his sister and the MC's neighbour, who came across as very one-dimensional.

Quite a few mysterious happenings occur throughout, which may or may not amount to witchcraft, but I became increasingly frustrated as it felt as though the story wasn't really going anywhere. Eventually, I was just bored and the ending felt completely anticlimactic. Nothing is really explained, a lot of things just fall into the void, and what is implied to have happened would contrast with everything we've read up to that point, making the whole thing even more confusing.

Essentially, this didn't quite have enough plot for my taste, feeling to me more as directionless meandering, but also didn't go deep enough in exploring its characters to read like a character study. Such a shame, because the ideas were clearly there and the writing itself was actually good, but I was left very unsatisfied overall.

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
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