My book slump continues! The synapsis gave me so much hope for a spooky, gothic haunted house story, but all I got was family dramarama. Yes, there’s creepy ghost kid noises up in the rafters and rocking chairs moving about, but that’s about all you get.

The gist: Set in a haunted English manor, this ghost story/family drama (light on the spooks, heavy on the drama) revolves around a bereaved widow named Stella who visits her preggers sister Madeline to help cheer her up. Things get complicated when ghosts start making themselves known. A persistent child ghost clearly won’t stop until the two women discover the truth of his demise. This proves to be an impossible task as everyone int he household–including a spiritualist debunker and a nefarious, patriarchal doctor–work against them. Damn, it’s hard being a woman.

Thoughts on the pacing: This OVERLY descriptive book slogs along at a snail’s pace, and you really don’t get much action until the very end. Most of the story involves Stella and her sister trying and failing to convince the awful head matriarch and her hired hands that ghosts are haunting the joint. Since they’re women, they’re obviously being hysterical and need to be toted away to the nearest insane asylum post haste!

Thoughts on the main character: Stella is broody and not a whole lot of fun, but yet she’s got moxy, which I appreciate. I’m also really happy to see a character who isn’t overly feminist in an anachronistic way. This is an ongoing annoyance with ballsy main characters in Victorian era novels that seem so out of place. I’m all for feminism, but these characters dreamed up by modern-day writers do not match the times. Stella, however, felt authentic and believable.

Thoughts on the spooks: Sadly, the ghost story is hardly there. We hear voices and stuff moves around the upstairs room, but that’s about it. This is more of a scandalous, skeletons-in-the-closet kind of story with a twist ending that a lot of readers will probably see coming.

Overall thoughts: This book was really, really, REALLY slow moving. Maybe it could appeal to historians and fans of WWI family drama. It’s just not for me, dog.