The gothic atmosphere is enjoyable, and I found the characters compelling, but I found the prose too stilted and repetitive — like it was very keen to make sure we understood every exact implication so much that it would return to the same moment over and over again.

I also found some of the details jarring. A lot of this might have been picked up with a heftier edit, perhaps.

A great read. Grabbed my interest from the beginning. I love the tension and misdirection .My only complaint is a couple of typos.

Really good story i liked how slow it was and how it took him a while to get to the house and find out what happened to his lover Simon who had passed away. The family in this story was so dysfunctional, Simon had two sisters who one was dead playing as the other one the main character ‘Marsden’ didn’t find out till later in the story he was really confused half the time.. and the other family members were hiding secrets, everyone was hiding a secret. It was so page turning I just was consumed and couldn’t stop reading till the end. Loved the story.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me this book.

This story ended up being every gothic trope mashed together. The old mysterious house, the questionable ghostly presence (or maybe it’s just madness?), the secrets everybody is keeping. Unfortunately, these all too familiar tropes were simply played straight here, making every twist guessable from the first 3 chapters. Since so much of the genre relies on the suspense of the mystery, this left much of the book feeling flat and like we were simply waiting for them to get to the point. Additionally, the characters were very one note, resulting in them feeling like archetypes rather than people.

On top of the story issues, this book featured several typos (to the extent of a character called Linton at one point but never again being referred to as Lion).

The premise seems engaging, but I kept being thrown out of the story by details that seemed out of keeping with the period -- for example, most striking early on was Marsden's request to be called by his given name rather than addressed as Mr. Fisher, which it's nearly impossible to believe anyone would have done in his situation.

Unfortunately, I think this book could have used stronger editing before publication.