My Darling Dreadful Thing

My Darling Dreadful ThingMy Darling Dreadful Thing on May 14, 2024
Genres: gothic, horror
Pages: 375
Goodreads

Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.

Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.

Then, someone is murdered.

Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.

I wanted to like My Darling Dreadful Thing more than I did. But also, upon reflection, there’s nothing that I can really point to that I didn’t like about the book. It was a quick read, I didn’t really put it down, I enjoyed it, but when I finished it, it just felt kind of…done.

But maybe that’s the point, there really isn’t a point to it. It’s just a snapshot of this weird, strange, disturbing thing that happened in Roos’ life. Then she moved on after the pages stopped turning, and so do we.

Now don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it. The atmosphere was eerie and gothic (atmospheric reads seem to be my thing this year). Both houses, the one Roos does seances in with her mom and the one she moves to with Agnes, feel like characters in themselves. It’s very haunting.

While Roos felt like a fully formed character, it was interesting to see how she’s portrayed in the interspersed notes from a psychologist. In her own timeline, you believe everything that’s going on. You believe Ruth is real, everything terrible and creepy is real. But in the notes, I started to question whether any of it was real or if it was just in her head. Much like everyone else who can’t see spirits treats her in her own timeline.

By the end of it, I wanted to believe her but I found myself not trusting her narrative 100%. Which I think makes me a skeptic, although I hate admitting that.

Either way, there wasn’t really anything “wrong” with the book. In fact, the writing was great and I will probably pick up more of Johanna van Veen’s writing. I might have her newest book in my cart already.

One Dark Window

One Dark WindowOne Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
Series: The Shepard King #1
Published by Orbit on September 27, 2022
Genres: fantasy, gothic, romance
Pages: 396
Goodreads

Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

The first time I saw this book sitting on the shelf at Chapters, I did not bring it home with me. The cover was pretty, the premise was interesting, but I had a pile of books twice my height to get through so I left it there.

Then the algorithm algorithmed, and I saw it recommended a couple of times.

Finally, I said dang, okay, win me over pretty book. But it was sold out online at Chapters (gasp, the horror!), so I quickly ran to my local one and picked up one of the last remaining ones perched on the shelf.

I’m being dramatic, but this book is dramatic, and it’s so fucking good.

The premise is original and interesting. You get enough backstory and lore sprinkled throughout without any of it feeling info dumpy. It’s just enough to explain what’s going on, while leaving you wanting more. The idea of the Providence Cards is fun, but what makes them stand out so much are the accompanying riddles. They were eerie and perfect. There wasn’t one thing I nitpicked about the plot, it all made sense exactly the way it was.

It’s been awhile since I’ve loved a cast of characters this much. Each one was dynamic and flawed, without being annoying. They all seemed like real, developed people with lives and thoughts beyond what you were reading on the page. Elspeth was an interesting POV to read from, and while she didn’t always know what was going on, it didn’t drag the story at all.

Ravyn was your classic dark-haired, brooding misunderstood softie. A hard exterior with a heart of gold. But he was delicious, and not annoying or condescending, and his characteristics did not change. The hard exterior, heart of gold reveal was done well.

Every side character was necessary, and there. Everything felt so alive. Even the Nightmare, who some might argue is not alive, still felt very much alive.

Anyway, the writing was superb, the atmosphere was superb, the characters were everything you could ask for. I found myself numerous times racing through pages so I could know what happened next.

Suffice to say, I’ve preordered the second book already.