An interesting story about memory and our pasts and the shifting realities of youth. The pacing was good, and I loved the main mystery, but it felt a little unsatisfying at the end, when I still felt like, due to the supernatural elements, I wasn't entirely sure what the final closure/ending really was.

DNF @ 50%
The premise of the book sounded so interesting but I really was not clicking with this story or characters unfortunately

This book was WOW!! I liked the slow burn beginning just unfolding the complex story to Brackenhill and once the stage was set the story just took off! Hanna I was rooting for with so many things and I was on her team all the way to the end! When you can mix thriller with ghost story type vibes without getting too paranormal I love it. There was so much edge and character development, and I liked the go between of then and now to jump from past to present and how it all fit like a puzzle that can't be solved until BAM.... then the answer is there laid out in it's Sunday best! Who hasn't always wanted to go live in a creepy chilling goth type castle and feel like you are in an unreal adventure ready to explore and be spooked! I really liked Fae and was sad for her, but her character was very well developed and her death was needed to make the story complete. I have never read anything by Kate Moretti so I will have to look up if she has more books, but this being my first read by her puts her on my author watch list and is definitely a must read for anyone that likes mystery, suspense, and all the in between of the twists and turns you could get through! Thank you Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the chance to rate and review this title!!

Loved this exciting and suspenseful book! Kate Moretti is an exceptional author, and you will not be disappointed in this purchase. It kept me guessing until the end!

Thrilling, exciting, and very mysterious – I was hooked from the start! I really love the idea of a creepy, old estate being passed down through generations, with each generation adding their own secrets and mysteries to house. It really makes you wonder just how much has actually happened in that house.

The story is told through the eyes of Hannah, who spent a few summers at Brackenhill with her sister until it all went wrong. She hasn’t been back since. I found Hannah to be a wonderfully unreliable character. Her decisions were equal parts completely reasonable and terribly frustrating. These characteristics blend together to lend a bit of mystery to Hannah and make certain things more believable in the end. Throughout the story we also learn a lot about her sister, aunt, and uncle.

We are presented the story in two timelines: past and modern day. The flashbacks to the past were just little sprinkles of memories that made it all the more clear why things are the way they are now. I feel like the pacing and unraveling of the truth was done very well. I still feel like I have questions after completing the book, but it’s intentional. We do get a tiny bit of resolution, but there still seems to be a big “what if” hanging over my head. The pacing of the story was great and the reveals were equal parts expected and shocking.

I very much enjoyed the atmosphere created by this story. I think in terms of plot and pacing, it was fairly average, but I often feel that a good story has a good atmosphere a lot of the time. This certainly had that. I have enjoyed Kate Moretti's books before and certainly will continue to read her.

This book had a lot of elements I loved. The plot was different than a lot of the domestic thrillers out now. I unfortunately didn't find the pacing or twists particularly thrilling or shocking, but I still enjoyed the ride. I recommend this to mystery readers but not those looking for a twist that will blow your socks off.

I thought this would be a great read to end the month of October with. It started out well, but ultimately was disappointing.
Hannah Maloney hasn't been back to Brackenhill castle in the Catskills since her sister Julia disappeared from there seventeen years ago.
She's built a life with her fiance Huck, trying to leave that time behind her.
But when her Aunt Fae is killed in a car crash and her Uncle Stewart lies slowly dying from a lingering illness, she must return to the place that has haunted her.
The memories begin slowly coming back to Hannah, and she grows consumed with what really happened that long ago summer. Ghosts begin to torment her, can she survive the echoes of the past?
This psychological mystery/thriller piqued my interest in the beginning with the eerie, gothic, supernatural ambience. But for me it became tiresome and I didn't connect with the characters.
Thank you Thomas & Mercer for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

From my blog: Always With a Book

I am such a fan of Kate Moretti's books! She can sure write a twisted, thrilling story that leaves you turning those pages, not sure where it is all heading as is clearly evidenced by this latest book.

I am always a fan of gothic novels and when you throw in deliciously twisted, well-developed characters that you aren't quite sure you can trust, I am all in. Add in a haunted house and a family fueled by secrets and I couldn't tear myself away. I loved how this whole book was narrated by our main character, Hannah - sometimes it's a nice change of pace to just have one narrator rather than multiple ones.

This pacing of this story is just right and it is so atmospheric. The tension is so taut and there is a sense of creepiness to the book. Having the story move back and forth in time just amped up that tension as Hannah starts to remember what happened those summers she spent at Brackenhill with her sister.

This book is thrilling and downright chilling at times, and the twists and turns keep you turning the pages until you reach the conclusion. While I did figure a few things out, I was still completely drawn in and needed to see how everything fit together. I definitely recommend picking this one up!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an Earc of this book.
Truly a gothic thriller of a ghost story. Very readable and easy to follow despite a twisty, turns plot and lots of characters.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti.

When Hannah gets word that her aunt has died in a car accident, she is upset to learn that she must return to her family's castle in the mountains. A once endearing escape has now turned into a house of memories that Hannah would rather forget. But it's not just the memories that haunt her, several people have also come back into her life that she wasn't prepared for. Could the return to the castle be what undoes Hannah completely.

There were a few spots that dragged, but overall, great atmospheric book. It was written well with plenty of intrigue and material to keep you going. I liked the gentle rollercoaster of slowly revealed family secrets along the way.

A mystery and thriller.
Set in the Catskills at a family castle.
Hannah rushes there after her aunt is killed.
She hasn't been there since her sister went missing , 17 years ago.
Her fiancee comes with her, ex boyfriend is now sheriff lots of drama there.
Book goes back and forth between past and present.
Keeps you guessing
3.85

Who wouldn't want to live in a castle?! Apparently, anyone but the Maloney family... Brackenhill is known to be cursed when generation after generation experiences tragedy while living there. When Hannah and her older sister stay there over the course of five summers when they are teenagers, Hannah has no inkling that anything is wrong with the castle. In fact, she loves spending her summers exploring the castle with her sister and spending time with their aunt and uncle. Not to mention the cute boy who's family owns the community pool in the nearby town. But one day tragedy strikes again -- Hannah's sister disappears. What follows is an adolescence and adulthood filled with grief, abuse, neglect, and too many unanswered questions for Hannah. She thinks she's moved on with her life -- she has a great apartment with a great fiance who comes from a great family -- but that "great" veneer starts to crack when her aunt dies in a car accident and Hannah is summoned to Brackenhill once again. What she finds are more questions - and some answers - Hannah never wanted to find...

Thoughts: I couldn't help but picture this intriguing castle while reading. Moretti paints such a clear picture of what Brackenhill looks like that it's almost as if readers are there. Honestly, despite the "shady" circumstances, I kind of wished I could be there. It sounds beautiful! But it's not without its dark secrets, and Moretti takes readers through a labyrinth of them. Hannah is a likable but unreliable narrator, which just adds to the intrigue. Readers will constantly be wondering how much each character really knows about what's going on and about what happened years ago. And the twists! The twists take a while to get to, but they are worth it!

Hannah comes back to Brackenhill after her aunt's death. While trying to settle her aunt's affairs, many hidden secrets buried at Brackenhill start to surface. One of them is the fate of Hannah's missing sister, Julia. I really enjoyed the story, however I feel that the ending was lacking and was far from climatic. Other than that, the layout and writing were great and had my interest.

This is a gothic mystery about family, a castle, a small town, and a lot of secrets.
Hannah used to spend her summers at Brackenhill with her sister, visiting her Aunt Fae and her Uncle Stuart. The sisters would play in the garden, explore the old castle, try the countess doors (some of them seemingly always locked, as though something was hidden behind them), and later cycling to the town, making friends and hanging at the pool. But it all ended when one summer, Hannah’s sister Julia disappeared and Hannah was taken back home to her mother and abusive alcoholic stepfather Wes. Hannah Maloney never set foot at the castle again.
That is, until her Aunt Fae has a car accident and is called back to Brackenhill.
Suddenly, she has to face everything she left behind – most of all her sister’s unsolved disappearance – as well as some new mysteries involving a human bone found on the edge of the castle grounds, the mystery around Ellie, Julia’s best friend who vanished a year before Julia herself, a muttering from frail and dying Uncle Stuart about an accident and a girl named Ruby.
Hannah has to deal with seeing Wayne – her first boyfriend who her sister stole from her - who is now in charge of the investigation into Fae’s death as well as Fae’s friend Jinny, who taught Julia all about witchcraft in her last summer at Brackenhill.
So if Fae’s death was no accident, and there was something involving a girl named Ruby, and Ellie and Julia both disappeared without a trace – what is happening at this castle? Hannah becomes obsessed about finding out the truth.
I thought I knew the answer. And then I didn’t. Then I thought I solved it again. But I hadn’t.
The book will have you holding your breath, hoping not to be right about some of your suspicions, and leave you guessing until the end – the VERY end.

This book starts with "I didn't mean to kill her" and I was immediately like, okay...I'm interested! I love when a first line immediately grabs me!

I loved that this was a dual-timeline story. It gives that wonderful perspective of what happened, and what the present-day person is trying to figure out. This was a book that I loved at times, and didn't love at times. It had some slow parts. Overall though, I felt drawn to the story and needed to know what was going to happen.

I would recommend this for readers that enjoy a murder-mystery/thriller!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

I have read and liked a previous book by the author
(The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti) and I wanted to give this a shot as well. The writing style and the claustrophobic atmosphere were on point. I could feel the stifling conditions that our lead protagonist found herself in when she gets a call that her(long estranged) aunt was in an accident. She finds herself back in a town, and in a house, she left years ago shrouded in mystery.
The story involves multiple perceptions of the same situation. The past may be a fact, but everyone remembers their own bits making it hard to put a clear picture together. I suspected a few things, but the main twist(s) took me completely by surprise.
It is a quick read without missing a beat at any point, this is its best factor. When it comes to the reveals, although it was well done, there was a lot left to explain. I know that books like this like to leave a few hanging threads to deepen the feeling of unease, but here we have more than one. The house was a character in itself and played a significant role in the events that occur.

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

3.5 stars
I enjoy a book that has a big frightening house as one of its characters and Brackenhill was definitely a scary place!

Hannah Maloney is troubled. Not only has she just lost her aunt to a car accident, but she also lost her sister many years ago,although Hannah believes her to have just run away. Poor Hannah also has a terminally ill uncle living in the old family castle in the Catskill mountains that Hannah also has to contend with. Going back to Brackenhill with her fiance, she confronts the many secrets and rumors that surround both her aunt and the castle while contending with her own battery of secrets.

Seventeen years have passed since her sister disappeared, but then a human bone is found and Hannah thinks the worse that this bone belongs to her sister. Uncovering the secrets of Brakenhill brings Hannah up against her own past and the many secrets she holds deep within her.

This book was wonderfully atmospheric although it moved quite ponderously in some places. The house had that creepy ominous vibe to it which made for a fine background. However that ending was so nebulous that it left me scratching my head and wondering if I had somehow missed something. Recommended for those who love a menacing house and a sinister group of characters.

Brackenhill has a twisted history; ten girls have gone missing from Brackenhill over 150 years. Brackenhill is a place that Hannah, as a child, used to go to during the summer with her sister Julia, who herself is one of the missing girls. When Hannah’s aunt dies in a car accident, she must return to Brackenhill but soon she finds herself caught up in another mystery surrounding Brackenhill when bones are found on the property. Can Hannah uncover the truth about the bones and about her missing sister? Or will she become another one of the girls of Brackenhill?

After reading the description for this novel I found myself intrigued by the mystery surrounding the house, but sadly I was rather disappointed. The novel started out with so much promise and I found myself unable to put it down, but as it went on it seemed to fall flat. There were a lot of loose ends by the conclusion and I felt like there was too much that was left unresolved. I think that if certain plot points were resolved in some way other parts of the novel would have been more acceptable and believable, but all together it was just too much to wrap my head around. I really liked some of the characters; they were individuals I could connect with and understand, but other characters seemed unnecessary and almost clogged up the story. I did enjoy the way in which Moretti told the story, jumping from the past to the present and giving the reader little pieces of information at just the right time to maintain the suspense and mystery of the events. 

I really wanted to enjoy this novel, especially since my first impression of it was so high, but overall I was disappointed; I think that if it was longer and the characters were more developed and it was a little longer I would have liked it more. Others may enjoy The Girls of Brackenhill, but it fell a little short for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-copy of The Girls of Brackenhill in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.

3 Stars!

The Girls of Brackenhill promises to deliver a good gothic mystery and it does. Sadly, the pacing is a bit slow and the big reveal seems a bit forced and not explained well.

Hannah Maloney is called to her Aunt Fae's castle, after she dies in an accident. Hannah hasn't been back to Brackenhill since her sister disappeared 17 years ago. I loved how the story went back and forth in time. You learn the history of her Aunt and how she wound up in the castle on the hill. You are also whisked back to the summer of 2002 and learn of the events leading up to Hannah's sister, Julia's disappearance.

I look forward to reading more of Kate Moretti.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Kate Moretti for providing me with an ARC.