3.5 stars, rounded up.

There is so much to love about this book. The character dynamics, the found-family structure in Cross House that we see formed in the flashbacks, the sapphic longing and tension between the two main protagonists, Emmeline and Annie. It's all dying to be read. At the core, this is a book about Annie and Emmeline—both as individuals and together. They both have to deal with a past that haunts them—one Annie didn't have much say in and one Emmeline was forced to have a say in. And together, they have to figure out what this connection, this thread, that connects them means.

I've personally never read The Great Gatsby, but I've seen this tagged as "Witchy, sapphic Gatsby." It delivers on the lavishness for sure. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that stopped me from truly loving this book. I felt the pacing was off. This might sound odd, but it felt like I was reading two short novels in one volume. It went from an almost character study of tension, longing, and the desire to rekindle an old friendship. And then all of a sudden, it's a domestic thriller. Now it's a horror? The direction seemed to keep changing. I don't know if this was intentional or inspired by something, but to me it made the book seem longer than it was because I kept getting...I don't know...genre whiplash? As far as I'm aware,this is a standalone novel. It felt like there were a few plot lines that were introduced and wrapped up with an, "Oh by the way here's the conclusion to that thing real quick." It felt odd.

All that said, in the end this was such an interesting read. It has an almost uncomforting comfort to it, as oxymoronic as that sounds. I was in it for the characters. For Annie and for Emmeline. The side characters were great, too, but the main protagonists were why I was invested. Their strangers > instant connection > is one of us going to acknowledge this thing between us energy they have going on. Annie discovering a side she never knew she had in her—one that takes risks and goes to parties and knows what she wants. The type of person she had to leave her home to discover. And I loved reading about Emmeline coming to terms with who she is. A sister, a caretaker, a forlorn lover whose feelings can't be reciprocated.

This truly is a book of wild and wicked things. (Okay but how can you NOT use the title to describe it? It's literally perfect!) And maybe that's what connects the seemingly random genre shifts; at their core, they're all centered around whispers in the dark—the comforting ones and the chilling ones.