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A review by chloe_liese
The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller
5.0
What a beautiful, poignant romance—I highly recommend!
With elements of the gothic (a decrepit house that embodies the struggles of our heroine, a ghost haunting it whose painful childhood shares parallels with the heroine, and a local lore of fear and gruesome cruelty that isolates this property from the town), delightful details of Gilded Age New York, a truly villainous brother in law, and a romance between two people whose upbringings couldn’t have been more different The Widow of Rose House was a gentle, engaging love story with just enough unsettling ghostly elements generating conflict and suspense to keep me invested but not so much so that the joy of Sam and Alva’s romantic journey was overshadowed.
The love scenes, the discussions of trust, the work of healing, the perspective of people whose lives have been hard in the way Alva’s has, the rare beauty of a loving, supportive family like Sam’s, all made this an engaging, feel-good, engrossing romantic story. I’m excited to see if other characters from this world (Benedict? Henry and Maggie?) get their own stories—if so I will absolutely be reading!!
With elements of the gothic (a decrepit house that embodies the struggles of our heroine, a ghost haunting it whose painful childhood shares parallels with the heroine, and a local lore of fear and gruesome cruelty that isolates this property from the town), delightful details of Gilded Age New York, a truly villainous brother in law, and a romance between two people whose upbringings couldn’t have been more different The Widow of Rose House was a gentle, engaging love story with just enough unsettling ghostly elements generating conflict and suspense to keep me invested but not so much so that the joy of Sam and Alva’s romantic journey was overshadowed.
The love scenes, the discussions of trust, the work of healing, the perspective of people whose lives have been hard in the way Alva’s has, the rare beauty of a loving, supportive family like Sam’s, all made this an engaging, feel-good, engrossing romantic story. I’m excited to see if other characters from this world (Benedict? Henry and Maggie?) get their own stories—if so I will absolutely be reading!!