Kit McDeere is out of options. When she b*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during Murder Most Foul (February-May 2025)
Kit McDeere is out of options. When she became a caregiver she never thought it would mean that years would pass by without barely even noticing. The patients changed, the routine didn't. And then her name was splashed across the papers. She was taking care of her mother who had terminal Cancer. Only her mother died of a drug overdose. Her name has been cleared but it is not clean and no one is willing to take a chance on her. No one except for another person with nothing left to lose. Lenora Hope was an urban legend when Kit was growing up. There was a rhyme and everything, "At seventeen, Lenora Hope. Hung her sister with a rope. Stabbed her father with a knife. Took her mother’s happy life. 'It wasn’t me,' Lenora said. But she's the only one not dead." Kit never thought Lenora was real, and yet she is. Lenora needs constant care, she's in her seventies and confined to a wheelchair from a series of strokes. The only way she can communicate is using her left hand, mainly taping out yes or no answers. And yet when Kit arrives at Hope's End she is terrified of this bedridden woman. It doesn't help that the previous beloved nurse disappeared in the night never to be heard from again. The story that Kit is told, that she had to leave for a family emergency, doesn't add up. Especially when Kit tries to put unpack in her new room. Because there is no room for her possessions because their place is taken up with the previous nurse's possessions. Clothes, books, even her medical kit. This doesn't make any sense. The other staff aren't that comforting, a house keeper, a cook, a young maid, and a groundskeeper. They all seem to be a part of the pall that hangs over the estate. And as for the house itself? How does anyone live here? The floor is canted as the whole house leans towards the ocean, promising that one day it will crash off the cliffs into the cold waters below. Could that be what happened to her predecessor? One day she got too close to the edge and over she went? Kit doesn't know what or who to trust, is the schoolyard chant tainting her perceptions, or are the cracks in the walls getting bigger, the creaks in the night, the shadows under the crack in the door to Lenora's room, everything is imbued with menace. And yet, she stays, because Lenora is able to laboriously type with her left hand, and she has promised to tell Kit the truth. But what if the truth is the most dangerous secret of all?
Riley Sager perfectly understands the building blocks of a good Gothic novel. It all goes back to family and location. Just think of Flowers in the Attic, AKA incest in the attic, the Gothic pulp of it's day, family and location. Here we have two families full of secrets and a location that is to die for, literally, it might just collapse into the ocean at a moments notice. The way that Sager weaves Lenora Hope's tragic history of lost love is the stuff of Gothic nightmares. A mother, father, and sister tragically murdered, and her, alone, living at the scene of the crime, trapped forever in the past, with only her loyal retainers. A woman who should be a subject of pity but instead is a subject of fear. Fear that works it's way into Kit McDeere's mind as her own family trauma is revealed. A mother dead, the Cancer was killing her but that isn't the cause of death. That death is why Kit is at Hope's End. But there's more. There's always more with Sager, and the way these two women's lives start to come together shows what a master storyteller he is. As for the house? I never really feel that a book can be considered Gothic without a memorable location. There are so many pretenders out there who don't realize this necessity. Hill House, Manderley, Wuthering Heights, Belasco House, and now Hope's End, these are the gold standard. These are places you dream about, places that haunt you. Places you never want to visit but after you read about can never leave. Hope's End is perfection, in the most decrepit, moldering, uninhabitable way possible. It's not just that the evidence of the murders still lingers, blood spots on the stairs, a missing pool table, and a broken chandelier, it's that the house is literally falling into the ocean. You could call it hubris to build a house on a cliff, but that just adds to Lenora's father haunting her forever, his vanity destroyed her in more ways than one. But what really got to me was the fact that once you're on the second floor there's a cant the house. It is leaning towards oblivion. This makes Hope's End a kind of fun house, or should I more correctly say a house of horrors? An attraction at a local fair that has an air of menace about it, where dark carnies prowl the space between tents, and the fun house is the most terrifying place you could be trapped. Every second that they stay in the house is a second too long. You know as they do, that everything will come crashing down in the end, but the wait for that end is agonizing. This book had me reading with baited breath, a not uncommon occurrence with Sager's writing, but the ending crashed on me like the weight of those stones on the ocean as Hope's End fell. That was some ride....more
Bernice just pissed me off. She thinks a weapon will solve all her problems plus she becomes a hypocrite with the haints after how she treated Emmy. IBernice just pissed me off. She thinks a weapon will solve all her problems plus she becomes a hypocrite with the haints after how she treated Emmy. I kind of want there to be war...
Merged review:
Not sure what to make of this. It was more two stars because the ending was so abrupt and open ended. Basically it made me need more. I love Priscilla. Easily my favorite character now. Fancy cousins!
Merged review:
Bernice just pissed me off. She thinks a weapon will solve all her problems plus she becomes a hypocrite with the haints after how she treated Emmy. I kind of want there to be war......more
This issues didn't really progress the plot it was more wallowing in the aftermath of what Kammi had done. Though any cruelty to the Skinless Boy makeThis issues didn't really progress the plot it was more wallowing in the aftermath of what Kammi had done. Though any cruelty to the Skinless Boy makes me so sad. My heart breaks for him. The weird one page "Tales from Harrow County" I seriously don't get. It's not just that the art was shit but that it literally made no sense. At. All.
How am I going to survive now that I'm fully caught up?
Merged review:
This issues didn't really progress the plot it was more wallowing in the aftermath of what Kammi had done. Though any cruelty to the Skinless Boy makes me so sad. My heart breaks for him. The weird one page "Tales from Harrow County" I seriously don't get. It's not just that the art was shit but that it literally made no sense. At. All.
How am I going to survive now that I'm fully caught up?...more
Before the inhabitants of the chateau can send word *Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during Going Gothic (March 2023)
Before the inhabitants of the chateau can send word to Inultus and the Institute that the Baron's doctor has died a new doctor has arrived, unexpectedly stepping down from the train in Verdira. The mystery though isn't how the Institute knew to send a new doctor the mystery is how the previous doctor died. The Institute's body is one, spread out all over the world. Their knowledge is shared, their knowledge is sole, therefore to not know something that happened to one of their own is truly a mystery. And they do not know how the doctor died at the chateau in the far north. They should have remembered the cause of death not just the death. The new doctor arrives and immediately starts to investigate. Trying to fill in the gaps in their memory. What could have killed this host? And there it is. The answer, waiting in their corpse for discovery; a competitor. Another parasite trying to take root. A parasite capable of killing. Because the Institute keeps their secrets to themselves the residents of the chateau do not realize they are dealing with someone who has walked their corridors for years. The Baron's son Didier, Didier's pregnant wife Helene, excluding their twins all believe that the doctor is a new entity and therefore are spending needless time introducing them to how life works at the chateau. While the doctor views this all as an inconvenience. The competition must be found, examined, studied, and then eliminated. Luckily dinner is the only time when the household assembles and no one has ever made it to dessert under the Baron's gimlet glare therefore there is plenty of time for hunting the parasite. But where could the previous body have encountered it? In a flash it comes to them, the mine. The chateau gets it's money from a wheatrock mine and there was a collapse. Something in the dark. They must return to the mine. They get the houseboy Émile to help, risking the wintry weather to find their enemy. But what if that is exactly what the enemy wants? What if returning to the mine brings the parasite back to the chateau? What if it is all happening again and there's no stopping another death and another? The Institute has bodies to spare, but does the Baron's doctor?
To have a gestalt entity be your narrator is a ballsy move. But Hiron Ennes makes it work because they have such a strong authorial voice. I often found myself questioning if someone capable of such confident worldbuilding was truly a first time author and then, when the book completely fell apart at the end, I found myself no longer asking that question. The problem is this book is dealing with big issues from bodily autonomy to class warfare to climate change on a more intimate scale. Yes we see the macro, but only filtered through the eyes of one part of the whole. And it's the continual narrowing of the vision which in the end is Leech's downfall. When the gestalt entity loses connection to the greater whole at first it's interesting. How can someone used to being something more thrive? The answer is they can't. Of course what's really happening is that the original personality is coming through. The parasitic infection is losing it's hold. And the original personality coming through is where everything falls apart. That and the fact that there really is no ending. But more on that later. Once the original personality is back in control there's a disconnect. You have forged such a connection to the gestalt entity that even though you are revolted by everything they stand for you're also somehow rooting for them. And the hints and flashes of the original personality coming through actually doesn't connect you to that character but seems to be used more to understand the world they are living in and how this entity got a foothold. The original personality should be who we are rooting for, but instead they are flat and lifeless. And that's why the last quarter of this book is such a disappointment. This world and the characters that people it are so interesting and unnerving. You feel restless and ill at ease reading Leech but at the same time you don't want to leave the Swiss Chateaux with all it's Gothic goodness and Frankensteinian vibes. But Hiron Ennes's "burn it all down" vibe that takes over the last quarter of the book while logical in the Mary Shelley sense just feels rushed. And our two protagonists riding a train off into the sunset? It somehow discounts all that came before. What is the message? That escaping from trauma is a victory even if your continued survival is questionable? And while that might be true in life this is fiction. There could have been more solidity and less ambiguity and it's only subpar Gothic literature that doesn't understand this imperative.
**spoiler alert** I really liked this peak at little Palamedes and Camilla. Damn, they were a dynamic duo. I think it's sweet that Palamedes thinks th**spoiler alert** I really liked this peak at little Palamedes and Camilla. Damn, they were a dynamic duo. I think it's sweet that Palamedes thinks the doctor returned from the dead as a reverent because of love, because, that's what he would do himself. One wonders if the good doctor was in love with another dying lady... Someone we might one day learn about......more
Gideon wants nothing to do w*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during For the Love of Book Clubs (February-August 2024)
Gideon wants nothing to do with the Ninth. The house is nothing more than a creepy death cult guarding a locked tomb that is quickly dying out. She wants off the planet and out of the life she's begrudgingly lived. But her countless escape plans have never worked and this newest one is no different, even if it's the closest she's ever come. She is once again stopped by her nemesis, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrowhark is the scion of the Ninth. A wickedly powerful necromancer who has been puppeteering her parents corpses for years in an effort to make it look like the Ninth is still functional and not on it's last legs. This appearance is more important than ever as the Emperor has called all nine houses to his abandoned palace, Canaan House, to compete for the honor to become Lyctors, eternals who serve at his side. The problem is that each house has to have a cavalier, a warrior, indefatigable and unbeatable, who protects the necromancer. And Harrowhark's actual cavalier is more interested in poetry. Therefore the only real contender for Harrowhark's cavalier is Gideon. The problem is Gideon wasn't trained for this role and more importantly she'd rather see Harrowhark dead than be the one having to save her. So Harrowhark makes a deal. They go to Canaan House, they put on the show of a lifetime, Harrowhark wins and becomes a Lyctor and Gideon gets to ride off into the sunset. Gideon doesn't like this plan. Gideon doesn't think it will work. I mean, how can she pass herself off with frilly fencing when she fights with a two-hander? Gideon better be a fast learner because Gideon doesn't have a choice. When they arrive at Canaan House Gideon is quickly abandoned by Harrowhark who plays up the mystique of the the Ninth House by being wreathed in shrouds and totally unavailable to Gideon. Gideon sees quite quickly that the reputation of the Ninth makes all the other houses wary of her, and yet, slowly, she starts to befriend them. That's when they start dying. This Lyctor test was set up in a way that makes the suspicious houses unable to win, but amply able to die. Will Gideon even live to cash in on Harrowhark's promise or will she die screaming in agony on a distant planet? At least she won't die near the benighted locked tomb...
Me and much lauded books rarely get along. My tastes are rarely the tastes of the masses. Yet again and again I feel drawn to read them. That's how I picked up Gideon the Ninth. I mean, lesbian necromancers in space sounds awesome, but there was that voice saying, but is it for you? Turns out it was. But it wasn't love at first sight. This is a book that improves on reread because, just like Jane Eyre, there's all this dark exposition that takes place before the book actually gets good. But thankfully, just like Jane Eyre, the second time you read it you fly through the dark bits knowing the good stuff is coming soon. And that good stuff? Well, it's the Gothic space thriller of my dreams! Teams of two pitted against each other in order to find keys to literally unlock secrets in the biggest most haunted space palace you could imagine. There were elements of The Haunting of Hill House and The Hunger Games and Rose Red! But the joy in a reread is that knowing the twists and turns to come I was watching the magnificent setup that Tamsyn Muir was orchestrating with awe. I wasn't furiously reading to figure out what was going on, I was luxuriating in the twists and turns. Though what I found interesting this time is that I was reading this book with friends, so all those theories I had about the book being the victim of hype to it just being very polarizing came into play in another way, in that it really divided my book club. And the thing is, I can see where they're coming from because for awhile that's where I was when I first read it. Opinions ranged from complete love to those who wanted to love it but just didn't to those who claimed it ruined their holidays. So, the complete gamut of emotions and responses on display. The one thing I found fascinating though is apparently this book is just crammed with meme references and cultural jokes deriving mainly from The Office. There are literally websites and Reddit forums dedicated to this. Personally I only caught a few so I thought it was like a funny Easter Egg, there so that if you know you know but not infringing on the text. But the thing is I've never really watched the US version of The Office, and two members of my book club said there were so many jokes just from that show they couldn't take the book seriously and it sullied it. So my advice is don't watch The Office? Seriously, I never "got" the US version anyway....more
"Host" by Kiran Millwood Hargrave ★★★★★ "Inferno" by Laura Shepherd-Robinson ★★★★★ "The Old Play" by Andrew Michael Hurley ★★ "A Double Thread" by Imogen"Host" by Kiran Millwood Hargrave ★★★★★ "Inferno" by Laura Shepherd-Robinson ★★★★★ "The Old Play" by Andrew Michael Hurley ★★ "A Double Thread" by Imogen Hermes Gowar ★★★★★ "The Salt Mines" by Natasha Pulley ★★★ "Banished" by Elizabeth Macneal ★★★★ "The Gargoyle" by Bridget Collins ★★★★★ "The Master of the House" by Stuart Turton ★★ "Ada Lark" by Jess Kidd ★★★★ "Jenkin" by Catriona Ward ★ "Widow's Walk" by Susan Stokes-Chapman ★★★★★ "Carol of the Bells and Chains" by Laura Purcell ★...more
**spoiler alert** OK yeah the reveal that all the other relatives had also lost their powers was good but otherwise what is the point. And if we’ve re**spoiler alert** OK yeah the reveal that all the other relatives had also lost their powers was good but otherwise what is the point. And if we’ve really going back to Harrrow can Tyler Crook please come back. Anyone else is a pale imitation. ...more
Solid introduction that makes a lot more sense read in order. I like how Crook and Bunn play with the concept of family and our obligations to family Solid introduction that makes a lot more sense read in order. I like how Crook and Bunn play with the concept of family and our obligations to family in different stories....more
Elizabeth (Miss Eliza)
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Books:
gothic
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