House of Whispers: Book Two of the Mortlake Series, by David Longhorn. ScareStreet 2021

In this volume of the Mortlake series, we are given a ghost story. This is my favorite type of horror story, but there is more to it than just spirits who lived and died in the house.

Tara’s best friend has gone to visit her brother and sister-in-law’s new place, Haslam House, up north. They are house flippers, and, with their young daughter, have moved into a really old place not much south of Hadrian’s Wall. The daughter draws and speaks of a woman that no one else sees. Anita immediately asks Tara to come up and look into the spirit. When Tara arrives, she finds that what started with whispers at night and some drawings is turning into something more serious. While the first spirit is a spiritualist from the Victorian age and not harmful, not all are so nice. When a séance Tara conducts go bad, she in turn asks Mortlake to come up and see what he thinks can be done. It’s one of those times when nothing seems to go right…

I loved this book! It had all sorts of supernatural goings on in the house, and it brings in a larger story arc than merely what goes on a Haslam House- and that’s complex enough on its own. We get to know Mortlake’s crew better. We get to see that there are different types of spirits, and learn more about how the supernatural universe works in this series. I loved that a large part of the story is standalone, but that the larger story advances. Five stars.

 

Wolfsbane: Book One of the Mortlake Series, by David Longhorn. Scare Street, 2021

The first in the Mortlake series (of which I read the 3^rd one first…doh), this book, while interesting and suitably creepy, has some of the faults that all ‘origin issues’ do. The characters are new, undeveloped, and their abilities have to be explained, we’re being introduced to how the magic of this world works, and it’s shorter than the following books. But I felt Mortlake was well done, as was Tara- we get an extremely intense introduction to her.

We meet Tara as she is on a hike with her boyfriend. Lost, hungry, and wet with rain, when they come to a fence they decide to climb it as they feel it’ll be a shortcut. They are attacked, though, by creatures that Tara cannot recognize. Her boyfriend falls to the creatures, but Tara gets away, with no memory of how. In the ado surrounding her hospital stay and police questioning, someone slips her a business card with “Mortlake” on it. An internet search shows he’s a professor of myth and legend at Cambridge, with a side line in investigation of paranormal evenets. As an astrophysicist, Tara doesn’t put much faith in the paranormal. But between some things that happened when she was a teen, and the fact that the ‘wolves’ that killed her boyfriend didn’t look like normal wolves, she gives Mortlake a call.

Mortlake accepts her plea for help willingly- he’s already been looking into it. He swiftly pulls his helpers together and I’ll not give anymore or the whole thing will be spoiled. Suffice it to say that their skills, paranormal and physical, mesh into a unit that can face most things. I like that no one person- not even Mortlake- knows or does everything. It takes a village, I guess, to fight the paranormal.

Pretty good for number one in a series; I’ll give it four stars.

 

 Bloodlust, by David Longhorn; Mortlake Series Book 3. ScareStreet, 2021

I seem to be reading this series all out of order. No wonder I get confused!

In this installment of the adventures of Marcus Mortlake, the professor at St. Ananias College, Cambridge, finds himself meeting a woman from his past: Cassandra. He was a young man when they met; she was way out of his league and seemed to go out of her way to connect with him. When she took him to meet the leader of the cult she’d joined, Nathanial Crowe, things go terribly wrong, and Cassandra and Crowe are presumed dead.

Mortlake, as well as his mentor, Monty Carrington, posseses supernatural powers. They are far from alone in this; the local police force knows about and uses them when cases show signs of supernatural activity. So Marcus is called in when people start being found exsanguinated, little thinking he’s meeting his old nemisis – who didn’t used to be a blood sucker.

The first part of the story moved slowly, moving between past and present. There is an assortment of supernatural talents and beings in this series and several are presented here, on both sides of the confrontation. I found the last part of the book more interesting than the first, although it went by rather quickly. I would have liked a bit more of a give and take, but I could see how it had to be presented as Marcus having only one chance.

I really like Mortlake, Monty, and the policemen they work with. I found Crowe more annoying than terrifying, but really loathed Cassandra. All as the author meant! Four and a half stars; one half star off because of the tedium of the flashback.

The Haunted, by Danielle Vega. Razorbill, 2019

Teen-aged Hendricks Becker-O’Malley and her family move to a small town so that Hendricks can start over after a traumatic event with her ex-boyfriend. The run down house they choose to redo is the Steele House, where some horrible deaths occurred years before- deaths that were not exactly on the disclosure list at sale.



Hendricks is basically living in the house alone with her baby brother- her parents are still spending most of the time in the city, and even when they are at Steele House they barely interact. A sitter watches the baby during the day, but when Hendricks gets home, it’s her and the kid, which she barely interacts with. She also lucks out at school: she is immediately invited into the group of Cool Kids. They eat together, get together after school, and drink together. There is a lot of drinking, and it seems to be okay with all the parents.



Not only does Hendricks get immediately accepted by the Cool Kids, but the football star young man immediately likes her- maybe too much? Then there is the neighbor boy, Eddie, a dark haired Goth who the Cool Kids all ridicule and scorn because he is poor- I frankly found this to be damn near as horrifying as the supernatural parts. But he seems to know somethings about Steele House, and Hendricks finds herself strangely drawn to him. Is he part of the deaths? Can he be trusted? There is almost as much tension around the male characters as there is around the supernatural ones. And there is a lot of tension in this story.



It really is pretty scary; the supernatural sections are well done. I was less impressed with the regular teenage interactions. I could not bring myself to like the Cool Kids (although perhaps this was intentional?), having met those sorts myself back in school. Hendricks parents are remarkably detached from parenting and are virtually nonexistent. While I felt for Hendricks, with her past, the PTSD, and the supernatural frights, she’s kind of a Mary Sue. Three and a half stars, I think.

The Other Side of Elsewhere, by Brett McKay. RedAdeptPublishing, 2018

Twelve year old Ret is enjoying summer, other than the fact that his father works two jobs and is never home, while his mother works only one job but is exhausted from taking care of everything at home. He and his friends Gary & Jax are doing jumps and stunts with their bicycles on Dead Man’s Hill, when an older boy suggests they spend the night in the Crooked House. This is an abandoned old house that everyone says is haunted. So what to 12 year old boys do when given a dare that could be dangerous? They accept it, of course. Imagine their horror when real paranormal events happen!

This could best be described as a supernatural coming-of-age story. Ret goes through a lot as the summer goes on- more paranormal events; fear of the local mortician’s new employee, who Ret ends up working with; a family shakeup; people start disappearing. Then climax is extremely tense and well done. It’s a great middle school book, and I enjoyed it a great deal as an adult. Four stars.

The Witch of Willow Hall, by Hester Fox. Harlequin Books, 2018

Old school gothic novel here. In the early part of the 19^th century, the Montrose family finds themselves driven out of Boston by scandal. Moving to the small town/rural area where Mr. Montrose has a business interest, they settle in at the estate of Willow Hall. It’s not long before they find themselves beset by strange happenings. Lydia, the plain middle daughter, sees and hears ghosts. Emeline, the youngest, is obsessed with mermaids in the pond on the property. Catherine, the beautiful eldest, is obsessed only with finding a husband, preferably rich. Add to this cast of characters two eligible bachelors, and we have a bit- but not too much, thankfully- of gothic romance.

Lydia is a good main character. Unlike all too many gothic heroines, she isn’t weak and fainty. She doesn’t hate the love interest at first, then realize she loves him (nor is it love at first sight). She’s sensible. Her main interest is taking care of Emeline. She has no idea that she has supernatural powers.

The plot is decent. There are actually two main plot lines: Lydia’s, which includes Emeline and one of the two eligible males; and Catherine’s quest for a husband. She is one of those Center of the Universe people, and it turns out she has reason to act that way during the story. It’s a fast read (one evening) and kind of fun. I would have enjoyed it more if the supernatural element had been more prominent, and less time spent on Catherine. More witch, less b****. Four stars. 

I received my copy of this book free from Net Galley in return for an honest review. This did not influence my opinions. 

The Silent Companions, by Laura Purcell. Penguin, 2017

In 1865, Elsie Bainbridge, newly married, newly pregnant, and newly widowed, arrives at the family home of her late husband. Here she will wait out her pregnancy with only her late husband’s cousin, Sarah, and a bare handful of servants. This setting, far out in the country, is a new thing for her. She grew up in her father’s match factory in London, working there as soon as she was able as a child, and, following the deaths of her parents, bringing up her brother.

The Bridge, as it is called, is immense, and not in good repair. There are not enough servants to keep it up, and the villagers are afraid to work there. Soon enough, Elsie starts to see why. Mysterious noises fill the night. The nursery is clean and lovely one day, and dusty and filled with falling apart curtains and linens the next. But it’s not until a trip up into the attic (which is locked one minute and open the next) that things really get weird. Elsie and Sarah find two volumes of diaries from 1635, written by Anne Bainbridge, and centering around a visit by Charles I and his queen. These form a different narrative strand. They also find the silent companions- wooden cut outs that are painted very realistically as people. These were a real thing in the 1600s, although mainly in the Netherlands. People would put them in places in the house to startle people or just for décor. These particular companions, though, aren’t quite, stationary decorations. These move- but only when you’re not looking. Like Weeping Angels, you don’t blink if they are after you! For some reason, inanimate objects that pursue seem scarier to me than having a living person after you. And one looks surprisingly like Elsie- even though she’s not a Bainbridge by blood.

The third narrative strand is taking place in 1866; Else is in a mental hospital, in solitary, mute, and horribly burned. Her doctor gives her a pencil, and asks her to tell him what happened. Slowly she unveils the tale of the horror that she and the others went through. And it really is horror. One is never sure if it is supernatural (it certainly seems to be) or if someone is gaslighting Elsie- and if that is true, *who* is doing the gaslighting? It seems like everyone in the house is seeing and hearing the unexplained events. In the end, things still aren’t clear. Someone gains immensely from the situation, but is that person the perpetrator, or simply a very lucky by stander?

I downloaded this book and decided to take a quick look at it… I ended up sitting down and reading the whole thing over the day and evening. I could not wait to see what would happen next. I liked Elsie and found her a very intriguing character; although not so nice things about her turn up over the course of the book, she had reason for doing the bad things she did. Sarah surprised me. Elsie’s brother is an entitled twerp. I was sympathetic to Anne; she was the start of the terror but did it innocently. I was genuinely creeped out by this story, and it takes a lot to do that. I’m looking forward to more books by the author! Five stars.

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from Net Galley in return for an unbiased review. 

Neither of these things influenced my review. 

But Then I Came Back, by Estelle Laure. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017

Feeling out of sorts with her twin brother and her best friend, Eden starts to walk away, but slips on the ice, hits her head on a rock, and plunges into a frigid river. She is rescued, but doesn’t regain consciousness for over three weeks. When she comes to, she has a hard road back to recover, physically and emotionally. Brother Digby and friend Lucille are a couple. She can barely walk, much less dance the ballet that was her life. She even has to relearn how to eat and drink. Will she be able to fulfill her plans of college and a dance career? Can she even manage to catch up and graduate with her class?

In the time that she spends recovering in the hospital, she starts spending time looking in at another coma patient, Jaz. Despite knowing nothing about her, she feels a definite connection with Jaz. Then she meets the only other person who visits Jaz: Joe, who has been best friends with Jaz since elementary school. Together, they hope she will wake up.

Eden has a really big coming of age in this story. Not only does she have the usual teenage situations to deal with, but in some ways she’s been sent back to childhood. Add a romance in- her first one- and some supernatural things, and it’s an intense story. I found myself really involved with her struggle and cared about it. The other characters, while I liked them all, were not very deep, but it’s told in first person so that’s understandable. I found out this is a sequel, and that some of the other characters were the focus of the first book. This book stands well on its own, though. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review. 

Neither of these things influenced my review.  

The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry. William Morrow, 2006

Our main narrator, Towner Whitney- real name Sophya- starts the book by telling us she’s a liar and to never trust her word. After a self-imposed exile, she has returned to Salem from the west coast because her aunt Eva is missing. She is just barely recovering from a hysterectomy, and not up to doing much. She doesn’t get much rest, though, as events go south rapidly. Eva turns up dead, the “Calvinists”- followers of Towner’s horrible father Calvin Boynton, who oppose the witches who have proliferated in Salem- are getting out of control, a teenaged girl who was involved with Boynton has been beaten by the Calvinists and vanished, and Towner is starting to get involved with Rafferty, the police man who was investigating Eva’s disappearance.

A lot of the story is told via a journal/story Towner wrote while in a psychiatric institution after her twin sister’s suicide and in other flashbacks, as well as short spans from other POVs. Witchcraft is real, and the Whitney women have the ability to scry using the Ipswich lace which is made by the abused women of a safe house on an island- a historic craft revived by Towner’s mother. Towner can also read minds- mostly unwillingly.

This is a hard book to review without giving away too much. There is a big twist at the ending. There are clues scattered throughout the story, things that at times I thought were things that were wrong but escaped the final editing. The mystery isn’t really about Eva’s death or the pregnant teenager disappearing, it’s about Towner’s past. I enjoyed the story and couldn’t put it down, but found it hard to follow with all the jumps from past to present. Having an unreliable narrator doesn’t help. I had to reread parts, especially the ending, to try and figure it all out. You really have to remember what’s been said earlier in the story to try and keep up. I thought the twist at the ending- which many reviewers have called reminiscent of ‘Sixth Sense’- was rather brilliant. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

This did not influence my review.