The genre of Southern Gothic Mystery is new to me. This is the first of this type I have read and I loved it. The story was told wonderfully. I could not stop reading. While the idea of someone knowing what was going to happen to children in danger or what did happen to children that had been lost was outside of my normal comfort zone, I enjoyed the entire story.

There was a mystery, of course. The who-dun-it actually lead to more and more mysteries of the Evangeline house. The Deveau Family has a lot of history. As with many families there are secrets. Within those secrets is love, abandonment, murders (yes, more than one), and family dynamics. The love is interesting. From the very first interaction with this family you know something is not right. Each family member is off, they all have secrets, and they are not all as they appear. The more I read, the more I understood their relationships with each other. Even the hired help in the Evangeline house have secrets that lead to the long time mystery being solved.

The relationship between Noah and Charlie was intense. Charlie was still dealing with the death of her young son. Noah had his divorce to come to terms with. I have to admit that I figured out how Noah fit into the story long before it ended, but I still did not know the why’s of who he was. Their relationship almost seemed doom before it started yet they both realized what they had with each other and worked so very hard to make it work. When doubt came in they pushed through, when fear was there they stayed strong with each other, and when they were in danger they knew that could trust each other.

This is a great read. The pace of the story was perfect, the characters are strong and mysterious, and the ending is amazing. I definitely recommend checking out The Gates of Evangeline.