My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen REVIEW

Summary:

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth - strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries - is the light of Roos's life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos's 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 at night, 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.

My Thoughts:

Roos is held hostage by a woman she calls her mother, though she has no relation to her. When Mother discovers that Roos truly does have a spirit companion, she exploits it with her seances to bring in money and hoping for a benefactor to bring them out of poverty. Agnes is a seemingly wealthy widow who recently lost her husband and attends one of their seances. She has a spirit companion too, and pays Mother to take Roos to her estate to stay with her. Roos falls for Agnes, but thinks that Agnes is still grieving her lost husband, so she tries to make him a spirit companion so that she can see her again. But Roos is wrong, and it may cost her everything.

The book alters between the past (what has happened with Roos's childhood and time with Agnes) and the present (Roos being questioned about the murder). I like the characterizations of the main characters, as there are really only three: Roos, Ruth, and Agnes. However, this book wasn't really for me. I enjoyed some parts of the story, but others left me not caring about it at all. I'm not sure what it was, as I tend to love gothic horror. It might have been that we barely get a glimpse at what is going on in the present. We know Roos is being questioned as a suspect for the murder trial, but that's all we get. Those glimpses are through transcripts of the questioning, and we don't get her inner thoughts during it.

My Rating: 2 stars