I really enjoyed this suspense novel "The End of Temperance Dare" by Wendy Webb. Set in a serene local, an old sanitorium, with a heavily haunted past, and filled with interesting characters of the past and present, this book just kept me guessing. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I found this to be a mid-level book. It wasn't outstanding but a creepy tale that kept my attention. This is one to curl up with on a spooky night. I would recommend this novel to any one who enjoys the spooky books.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Great story! Great book! Creepy, edgy and so good! I couldn’t put this book down. I loved the setting and concept!

The End of Temperance Dare is a twisty, light supernatural story that will leave you fighting chills. Wendy Webb builds suspense from the very opening and hooks readers with a dark mystery they won't be able to leave until the end. I like that the story doles out details little by little, and just at the point of frustration because you haven't figured it out, it all comes together. All the connections made throughout start to make sense, but it's also where the most interesting part of the story lies. Definitely an interesting story and great for fans of gothic mysteries and thrillers.
*ARC provided in consideration for review*

I was disappointed in this book. I found myself flipping through there was just nothing I could hook into.

A past news reporter, Eleanor Harper takes on the new job of Director of the Cliffside Manor Artist’s retreat. Favorably picked by the retiring director, she wants to do a good job and not disappoint. However, the manor’s history of having been a Tuberculosis Sanatorium haunts all her efforts. The eerie past of the artists in residence begin to relate to how they were selected to receive this season’s retreat. Each is some how linked—and threatened. Until Eleanor figures out how — those under her residence are in danger—she is venerable to haunting sinister forces.
I love a good mystery. I love even more a good “ghost, paranormal” story. This novel had me turning the pages until the last couple of chapters, although many of the setups were fairly normal to this genre. That is, until the last couple of chapters. The author’s attempt to provide a giant twist lost me. Webb is definitely good a weaving a story, only this one’s ending didn’t ring true for me. However, the writing craft was exceptional, and I will be getting her new book when it comes on the market.

Despite a looming sense of dread she's carried for months everything seems to be falling into place for Eleanor Harper but in the most unexpected of ways. She loses her job as a crime reporter at the same time the position for director of the prestigious Cliffside Manor artists retreat becomes available. Eleanor has been drawn to the old tuberculosis hospital ever since she went there twenty years earlier as a cub reporter covering the sudden deaths of the hospital's founder, Chester Dare, and one of his daughters, Milly, in a tragic car accident. His remaining daughter, Penelope, has run the retreat ever since and she feels it's time to hand the reigns to the next generation. While Eleanor isn't the most qualified Miss Penny felt a connection to her all those years ago because they both agreed that the accident was no accident. Miss Penny never blamed Eleanor, who as an inexperienced reporter was unable to shed light on the deaths, but admired her tenacity and has followed her journalistic career with interest. When Eleanor arrives at the Manor through the mists she feels like she's home. Miss Penny welcomes her with open arms and inducts her into the running of the retreat, which is mainly handled by an extensive staff. In a week they are to get the current group of artists for a month-long residency and Eleanor will shadow Miss Penny until she's confident enough that she can handle the responsibilities herself. At least that's what Eleanor thought the plan was to be, Miss Penny had other ideas, as that afternoon she commits suicide and leaves everything in Eleanor's inexperienced hands. Eleanor is baffled by the predicament she has landed in but she views it only right to mourn but continue on in Miss Penny's memory. Therefore a week later the five artists arrive. Things do not go to plan. Miss Penny brought everyone here with a purpose... is she acting from beyond the grave? But more importantly, is she acting alone or are other supernatural elements at work?

Here's the problem I have with Gothic stories that involve haunted houses, there needs to be enough wiggle room that the "haunting" could all be chalked up to psychological issues. You need that suspension of disbelief. You have to be convinced or dissuaded through the story, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is a masterclass in this conceit. A Tuberculosis hospital is a whole lot of heck no from me. The reason for this is that TB hospitals were, as it says in this book, a “waiting room for death.” All hauntings derive from a death, here we have a plurality of death, so in my mind there is no question as to whether or not Cliffside Manor is haunted. It is SO haunted. This is a place where ghost hunters go, not artistic types. I have NO DOUBT that ghosts exist. What exactly they are I'm not sure, but I have seen many ghosts in my life, some benign, some very much the opposite. I would NEVER go willingly to a place like Cliffside Manor, it would be too much. Add to that the fact this retreat is made for artists like me... I really don't get how places at the retreat are so sought after. Yes, there is a wide range of susceptibility when it comes to seeing the supernatural, but the truth is the more sensitive you are to the world around you, the more open you are, the more likely you are to have such an experience. Therefore people who are artistic are more likely to pick up on these vibes, much like how artists are the ones who can hear the call of Cthulhu in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. So how are these artists not being like, don't go there, it's haunted. Word of mouth would spread like wildfire, but instead they have people clamoring for vacancies. This makes no sense to me, which makes me feel like the entire setup is unbelievable and therefore I don't buy into the story.

What's more it's hard to buy into a story where you're not quite certain if you're dealing with an unreliable narrator or not. My problem in this instance was that I couldn't tell if the red herrings I was following were meant to be red herrings or were just bad editing. To be clear, I reached the correct conclusion, I just don't know if I was meant to reach that conclusion in the first few chapters. What alerted my spider senses was Eleanor arriving at Cliffside Manor on a Thursday and the guests being scheduled to arrive the next Friday, but within minutes it was "arriving in one week." I don't know who taught Eleanor or Webb about the days of the week but that's longer than a week. Yes, you could brush it off as just common vernacular, it's about a week, but the way Webb writes I disagree. She is very precise, very matter of fact, you can tell she was a journalist herself in the very way everything is as it should be and nothing is out of place. If a book could be neat as a pin, this would be that book, and if I'm honest, I'd rather choose sloppy and lyrical than this. Which makes this first error glaring. IF this was a hint as to Eleanor's reliability as a narrator, I have to give Webb kudos. It was subtle and just enough to bait the reader. If, on the other hand, this was just a typo, in fact the most common of typos if I'm to be honest, because writers as a whole don't look at calendars despite the fact you can look up ANY calendar year online, well, then it's bad luck that a transcription or writing or editing error gave away something that's rather important. But then again, I feel like the whole unreliable narrator is played out. It's a way to delay the reveal while having the answer in front of you the whole time, and to me, that's kind of smug storytelling, though not nearly as bad as an author like Josephine Tey who purposefully left clues out so that the reader couldn't solve her riddles.

The truth is, The End of Temperance Dare relies too heavily on overplayed tropes. The obviously haunted local, the unreliable narrator, the love triangle (more on that in a minute), and the sexualization of children as a sign of evil. Think of all the movies and all the books over the years that have had innocent children possessed by evil spirits say licentious things and you know where I'm coming from. The Exorcist anyone? The problem I have with this trope is that instead of just being unsettling it verges on the edge of child exploitation, which is one of the MANY reasons I have never read Anne Rice again after Interview with the Vampire because of how she handles Claudia. Here it's taken further with the evil spirit of Temperance who is eleven in human years being obsessed with the Doctor as her future husband and later while controlling her sisters body not only is a loose woman, but stalks the photographer Richard, who is one of the members of the retreat we meet. It's hinted at that she was born a demon and she had impure thoughts and behaviors from the day she was born, yet Webb is never explicit enough with these revelations. Instead she leaves it all up to the reader's imagination, and I just don't like that because it's a cop out. She shows us these disturbing images and behaviors and then never fully goes to the root of the evil, therefore making the villain a sexually precocious child. That just freaks me out too much. And not in the good way. Instead I felt ill and the denouement and happily ever after left a bitter taste in my mouth because evil was left to be evil and the motives behind that evil were just to have her way with everyone especially these two men?

These two men who then form the other two corners of a love triangle wit Eleanor/Temperance. Because instead of Eleanor being involved in a healthy relationship she finds herself drawn into flirtations with the retreat's doctor, Nat, and one of the guests, Richard. This triangle felt so forced. Here is a professional woman trying to make a good impression at her new job and instead she is behaving like a lovestruck teenager... or should I say sexually precocious child? So the reason I hated this element of the narrative isn't that I just hate love triangles, because I do, I really really do, it's because the relationships don't feel like they organically develop. Which, I guess you could say, they didn't. But in order to achieve that happily ever after we bafflingly reach there has to be a kernel of truth amongst all the supernatural manipulations for the ending to be at least mildly believable. But in the end, looking at the whole story of Temperance Dare, I can't help think that it was a looong setup for very little reward. Sure, all the pieces fit into place, but mechanically. You have no emotions invested in the characters. It's too by the book. A paint by numbers narrative which would just horrify Henry, who was the resident painter at the retreat who worked in oils yet had no proper venting in his room for painting oils indoors. And then a happy ending where everyone gets what they want? That's not believable, that's contrived. I haven't read any of Webb's other books, but I hope there's a little more spark and a lot less plodding out of plot points. I can't take another book like this one, it was too predictable and plebeian.

The End of Temperance Dare is a creepy gothic tale!

First line: They gave her the bed by the window, the one closest to the toy box.

Summary: When Eleanor Harper is fired from her job at the newspaper she begins wonder where her life is going to go. She stumbles upon a job opening at Cliffside Manor, an artist’s retreat, where Eleanor had previously done a story on the deaths of the previous director and his daughter. On her first day as the new director, the previous director and owner of Cliffside mysteriously commits suicide. Eleanor is determined to keep the manor running and operational but strange things begin to happen. Before being converted into a family home and retreat, the building housed a TB sanitarium. And it appears that all the fellows arriving for the month long session have some ties to Cliffside and the TB hospital it once housed.

Highlights: Creepy. Wendy Webb is a great author for big houses and eerie stories. I loved the old manor house. The fact that it was a TB hospital adds to the creepiness of it. I loved the twist and turns. Several I was able to guess but never was for sure until all was revealed at the end of the book.

Lowlights: The story ended very abruptly. Everything came to a head quickly and was over.

FYI: Wonderful gothic fiction.

House that used to be a sanitarium? Check! Gothic creepiness? Check! Mysterious goings on? Check!
Just my sort of book.

Flew through this in a day back in June 2017 but only now getting around to reviewing it (oh the shame!)

Thoroughly enjoyed this story and the shenanigans it contains but I just wish it was creepier and scarier, that's the only downside to this book, everything else was all good and I will definitely be reading more by this author.

*Huge thanks to Wendy Webb, Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for this copy which I chose to read and all opinions are my own*

Another great novel by Wendy Webb. This gothic novel takes place at an old TB sanitarium. Norrie Harper is to become the new director of the now retreat for artists, as the old director is retiring. When the old director passes away suddenly, Norrie is now tasked with running the show as the show seems to be running her. Such a great mystery and ghost story. I loved it!

From page 1, The End of Temperance Dare pulls in the reader with thrills and...(ugh, sorry) chills.

Eleanor "Norrie" Harper has left her job as a crime reporter and has taken a job as the director of an artists retreat called "Cliffside Manor". What she doesn't know if that Cliffside Manor was a TB sanatorium in the past and carries it's dark history in every mile of the property.

Driving up to the property, Norrie is full of dread that truly never goes away. The action in this book start RIGHT AWAY. There are legitimately scary parts and there are well developed characters. This book could have been 200 more pages and I would have happily followed the mystery of Cliffside Manor.

Thanks to the publisher, Wendy Webb and NetGalley for the copy of this book in exchange for this review.

A fantastically creepy book that has a little historical element and maybe a few ghosts. Eleanor Harper was previously at Cliffside as a reporter when the car accident happened that took two lives and now she has returned to become the director and from the beginning things have been a little creepy.

I spoil the book a little mentioning the ghosts, but I am not revealing too much. I wish I had known about it ahead of time, I still loved the book, but I roll my eyes at a few moments with ghosts involved!

I loved the historical aspect so much. To get an inside glimpse into a home that was used for TB patients and to see how those patients were treated was many things, but interesting is the only word I can come up with.

I enjoyed my first Wendy Webb experience and I own one of her other books and after reading this one, it has moved to the top. I loved how she slowly but surely gave the reader little bits of knowledge and the way she unpacked it was so perfect. I will have to add that this was definitely a creepy book and I was home alone when I finished it and maybe that wasn't the best idea!

This book is not my typical preferred genre, however I have to say it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend to fans of this type of novel.

I love a good ghost story. This one was ok. It did not scare my socks off or make me huddle under the covers but I did get into the story.

"The End of Temperance Dare" by Wendy Webb

Two thoughts came to mind when I finished this novel: "Not what I expected" and "Wow." Both of them good thoughts. I am still trying to wrap my thoughts around the novel.

"The End of Temperance Dare" is a fictitious novel based on some realistic aspects including TB sanatoriums and the metaphysical: spirits or souls that have not moved on; as well as examining the everyday lives of the many characters within the novel.

It is deep, moving, thought provoking, haunting, suspenseful, and so much more.

It addresses the metaphysical as versus the logical. Stuck spirits versus those that move on. True evil versus true love.

It will leave you guessing and so hooked you cannot put the book down. Engaging or enraptured aren't strong enough words as to how strongly the reader takes to this novel.

The characters: phenomenal, believable and strong.

The storyline: realistic and extremely well written.

Some believe in stuck spirits or souls both good and bad. Some are very logical thinkers and can rationalize many things that have no true explanation for their occurance. A line suddenly appearing on a wall that wasn't there before. A piece of a chandelier held horizontally and then suddenly released. Some of us just have feelings we are being watched or are not alone even when it is just us. This is how the main character felt for awhile both before she moved to Cliffside Manor and while living there. But when those feelings are attached to logical findings, she is ready to face them head on...until things take a turn no one could have predicted...

If you like mystery and suspense, this is for you. If you want a novel that will grab you and won't let go, this is for you. And if you just want a phenomenal read, this is for you. No one will be disappointed by this novel.


Rating: 4.8
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️


Buy Link for "The End of Temperance Dare":
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**I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this novel.

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DNF @ 35%

I was really looking forward to this one. It was classed as a mystery horror, doesn’t that sound just so perfect for me? Unfortunately there was too much wrong with this book for me to be interested in delving into it any further.

My first annoyance with this book was how clunky the writing was. Nothing flowed particularly well, and even though some of the descriptions were well done, it didn’t do anything to help the overall feel of the novel.

Eleanor Harper is a grown woman, yet she talks like a moody teenager.

“You shouldn’t have come here” …

“Well actually I was asked to come here, so I think that you’re wrong.”

I mean really?

Plus, can I also mention that she meets a man outside in the early hours of the morning and is then suddenly in love with him? Running around holding his hand the next day, when she should be paying her respects to a dead woman. I have never had any experience with insta-love in books, but here we are, I’ve had my first taste, and it was bitter.

I actually put this book down for over a month and thought, maybe I should pick this one up again, give it more of a chance… within the first 5 minutes of reading Eleanor used the phrase “Where did he get off?” and I deleted it from my Kindle.

Thanks to Netgalley & Lake Union Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this one in exchange for an honest review. Sorry I didn’t like it!

Intriguing, to say the least! This book was a little out of my usual genres, but the cover was compelling. The book does not dissapoint!!! Wendy Webb wove a Web to untangle.....it makes you wonder! The air of mystery and the possibility of something ethereal are haunting.
Characters were interesting and relateable. Very well done.