kleonard 's review for:

The Herbalist's Secret by Annabelle Marx

3.0

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I liked this gothic story quite a lot. The house and the ghosts and Kitty's story, a familiar but still tragic one of oppression and misogyny, are all handled well and are compelling, and the twists that come at the end are good. But Greer, the housekeeper whose voice is most heard, never really comes to life, and her husband is such a non-entity that he doesn't really need to be in the book at all. We get a little of Greer's own desires and interests, but they remain on the light side. Caitlin, upon whom the synopsis blurb focused the most, doesn't really get fully-fleshed out either, and it's a disappointment that the two women of the contemporary part of the novel don't get a bit more fully realized.