Have you ever picked up a book based on advertisements you’ve seen randomly across the internet? I think my phone and computer has learned of my taste and books, and I stated to see this book advertised everywhere website I went to! It worked, because I immediately had to read it!
Thank you St Martins Press for my gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review.
Synopsis: Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to. Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon.
I first want to mention – how gorgeous is this cover?! I think it’s absolutely stunning. While I thought this would be more of a suspenseful story, it’s definitely more of a gothic horror tale. With that being said, it was mind-bendingly insane. It’s creepy and twisted and will keep you up on night thinking about it in the best way possible. It’s magic meets a haunted house – what more could you ask for in an October read? I will say the plot got a little muddled half way through, but wasn’t enough to keep me from reading on. If you are there, I encourage you to keep going.
4/5 Stars
Live, Read, And Prosper 