I think this book could have been so much more. I love a gothic tale, and while a slow start in horror can have an amazing pay off - this one started a little too slow. 

The action, intrigue, and mystery really didn’t start up until the halfway point. Once the plot got to the meat of the story, I enjoyed it. It just really took too long to get there. 

But if you are interested in a sapphic gothic tale with the vibes of a YA Haunting of Bly Manor and some decent anxiety representation - and you don’t mind a slow burn build up, this might be the book for you. 

I wanted to love this book so so much.

From the outset it has all of my favorite things: Emily Dickinson references, Ivy by Taylor Swift references, gothic romance, inspired by The Haunting of Bly Manor, a sapphic relationship, adorable kids, exploration of grief through fantasy, etc. etc. I was over the moon when I first read the summary.

The Good:
-The romance between Evie and Marin was very soft and sweet, especially the fact that there were

NO buried gays, nature is healing.

-The premise itself is fascinating, I enjoyed the supernatural aspect in this book. The imagery in the second half of the story is incredible, the horror/gore interwoven very very nicely with really nice bits of dreamy prose, a little reminiscent of Annihilation (2018), would have loved to see more of that fleshed out (ha) and built into the story from the start.

Everything with Charles Hallowell and Alice Lovelace in the sunken crypt at the end.................... OOF

.
-The cover is absolutely gorgeous, and I really love the title and how they both work into the story.

The Frustrating:
-Marin spends the entire book functionally asleep. I can't stand narrators that sleepwalk through their own stories. It's officially become my worst book pet peeve this year. The children (CHILDREN) had to spell the exact same thing to her several times. She still didn't get it. Another adult had to spell it out a third time. She still didn't understand. She never asked any questions.

She found letters upon letters upon letters addressed to her mother and immediately threw a tantrum about it to Evie The Love Of Her Life She Met Two Weeks Ago And Promised Eternal Understanding To Five Minutes Prior, instead of, oh I don't know, reading even a single one of them, or, say, asking Neera even once about Alice's history.

Halfway through the book,

we're treated to a flashback of her mother freaking out about even the mention of Alice and I made the effort to tell myself "well maybe she was a child and didn't understand her reaction, and that's why she trusts Alice anyway" but NO. The flashback was from A MONTH BEFORE THE EVENTS OF THE BOOK. And she still thought it was a good idea to trust this woman her mother was SO terrified of.

Exhausting! But okay, let's let it slide since she's young and grieving. Sure.

-The pacing is wildly inconsistent, much like the timeline of events. Gothic horror typically moves very slowly, carefully and consistently building tension with scene upon scene, until you reach the climax and all bets are off. But there was none of that here. What do you mean days passed "and then suddenly!". We were directly told things like "the girls are demons" and "Alice was scary and wrong" despite only seeing the girls be normal mischievous kids who recently lost their father, and seeing Alice

The Big Bad?

only twice before the climax.

Wren and Thea mention that things started coming back to life since Evie came back to the house, but Evie was still at boarding school when Marin found the zombie bird in her closet her first night at the house. What? Were we supposed to take it that was somehow Thea's doing?

.

-The romance is sweet and positive, but had absolutely no build-up. Evie and Marin had known each other all of 5 minutes where they talked about absolutely nothing, and Marin already decided Evie was The Cure to her (alleged) Generalized Anxiety Disorder (which I'm fairly sure the author didn't research beyond "fear of everything"; ex.

Marin has a "panic attack" at one point and the solution was apparently Evie kissing her in the middle of her hyperventilation.

Come on. Even Bridgerton did that better). I wondered to myself what on earth Evie saw in Marin besides the fact that she was there. Yes, some people feel safer than others, but not generally complete strangers that you find hot.

The Odd:
-

So we're really just not gonna talk about how two walking corpses somehow aged naturally and gave birth, one of them as many as three times? We're just? Not gonna address that? Even though the coroner found evidence of each of her deaths on Alice's body? But her OBGYN saw nothing out of place? WILD

<b>Tl;dr:</b> The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Pushing Daisies (2007), Frozen (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), Frozen 2 (2019), and Casper (1995) did all of this better. If you like any of those things you might love this book, or be like me, and love all of those things separately, and be ticked off at the pastiche.

Also I'm deliberately stating it because I was worried the whole time: the dog DOES NOT die. Thank you for your time.

This was a creepy, haunting gothic horror story. The gory descriptions of animal deaths made me squirmy. The sapphic romance was...fine? I don't think the writing was lyrical or romantic to make me deeply invested in their love story, but it was nice to see them care for each other.

I had no idea necromancy was involved in the story!

Grief and death were major themes here, and I think it was handled well. Everyone had their own ways to handle their grief.

I've been in a reading rut and this sparked my joy again. I absolutely love the haunting feeling every chapter brings. It feels like a lovely mix of Netflix show "haunting of bly manor" and Erin A Craig's book "House of salt and sorrow" but with its own twists and turns. Perfect book to get into the spooky vibes!

In a word, this book was amazing! I'm a bit ashamed it took me so long to read it, but I'm grateful that NetGalley provided a copy in exchange for an honest review. This hit all the right notes for gothic romance and horror without being overbearing. I found that I couldn't stop reading it once I started and I was rewarded with twists and turns and a thoroughly satisfying ending. I can't wait to recommend this to my library kids looking for a book that feels like Crimson Peak.