by Kate Moretti

Three stars – an unfinished thriller…

Verdict: Maybe. The book is fairly well-paced, spooky at times, and full of twists and turns. Yet, most who didn’t like it were dissatisfied with the last 1/4 of the book. I’m right there…if the last quarter were written as well as the first three-quarters, this would be a four…possibly five-star novel.

What’s it about? The story starts with a killing some eighteen years prior. You don’t know much else other than a person killed a girl out in the woods. Move head to 2019. Hannah Maloney, the protagonist, must return to her Aunt’s castle in the Catskills after her aunt is killed in a car accident. This is the first time Hannah has been back to the castle in 17 years. Her Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart, the owners of the creepy castle, are the perfect eccentrics living aloof from the nearby town. Turns out Hannah and her sister Julia spent summers at the castle in their youth. In the present, Hannah is “destined to start a new life” back in Virginia with Huck, her fiancé, and Rink, the dog. It’s not clear what starting a new life means because we have no idea what she had been doing for the last 17 years since her youthful forays to the castle. Anyway, we know Julia disappeared one summer at Brackenhill (the castle, a perfect name!), and Hannah never returned after that summer. Predictably, when Hannah goes back to the castle after her aunt has passed, she begins to question the events of the summer when Julia disappeared.

And ah…a human bone is found near the estate. Of course, it must be Julia, so Hannah becomes obsessed with reliving her past and finding out what happened to her sister.

Without going into more detail, there’s the spooky castle, the bone, the eccentric owners of the castle, and a nearby town whose residents are certain evil things have been going on in Brackenhill. Sounds like a great start to a thriller…and it is!

The Story (plot and character): The majority of the story is told in third person from Hannah’s POV, though it switches somewhat randomly between the past and the present. This all seems to work fine. Moretti crams a whopping 64 chapters into 330 pages. I actually prefer short chapters in a thriller, so no big deal there. The setting is well down. You can imagine the spooky, creepy castle surrounded by dense, dark woods, well away from the rest of the rational world. There’s mysterious noises, creaks, and rooms inside which amplify the setting. The pace is good. It does fall into a bit of “telling” at times, almost pure narration, especially scenes from Hannah’s past – but nothing to interrupt the flow much. Hannah, as the central character, is clearly not a reliable narrator – in other words, just because she is telling the story doesn’t mean everything she remembers actually happened that way. Unfortunately, many of the other characters fell flat to me (e.g., Huck, her fiance…he seems more like a prop…someone to talk to but serves no other purpose). Alice (you’ll find out who she is later) could have been better developed too. But Hannah is the star here.

Now, everything I said above is 100% true in the first 75% of the book. The other 25%? Read on.

What’s good about the book? The writing was easy and straightforward. The author’s ability to setup the setting was particularly good. There are many twists and turns, some red herrings, and a number of subplots (that’s also a not-so-good). The reader is clearly drawn into the story. Is this a ghost story? A murder mystery? Thriller? Psychological thriller? Bizarre coming of age story? Maybe a bit of all of them.

The pace was about right.

And the question for Hannah is clear: What happened some 17-18 years ago to her sister, Julia? In other words, you know where the book is (should be) going.

Oh, and it was free from Amazon as part of their First Reads program.

What was not so good? There were far too many loose ends that were not tied up (for most readers). The majority of readers want closure. IMO, this book does not give you that. Yet the vagueness of the ending may make it enjoyable to some.

Hannah’s character (or any of the others) were never really likeable. That can be okay (nobody likes Hannibal Lecter), but there needs to be some connection with the reader…and honestly, I had a hard time connecting with her (or anyone else in the story). At times, she seemed as immature at age 28 as she did at 15.

As I mentioned above, there were a ton of subplots in this book. Personally I’d have removed half of them and tightened up the main plot.

The ending. Most readers who did not review the book with high ratings almost always pointed to the ending as being an issue. It was almost as if the book were either rushed to be finished, not clearly thought out, or meant to be open-ended. There are so many open questions at the end…

Bottom line: If you want an easy read and a well-paced mystery/thriller that feels a bit like a ghost story AND you don’t mind a fuzzy ending, then go for it! If you want closure after putting a book down and want loose ends tied up, this is not your story. I’m on the fence on this one.