My Five Word TL:DR Review: Liked it not Loved It

The Ghosts of Merry Hall is a gothic ghost story with a split timeline, in the current day we have a woman, recently split from her partner and struggling to make ends meet with no job and a teenage daughter to care for.  Back in the past, we have a young girl, taken under the wing of a well to do man, who has plans for her to become the star performer in his ‘curiosity’ show.

Nell and her daughter Fern are really struggling.  They’re living in a tiny room, money is a problem and Nell really needs to find work.  In a stroke of luck Nell manages to find a whole country house with very affordable rent, at the same time as acquiring a job waiting on.  Of course, it’s not ideal but it’s affordable and the two will have their own space.  Except they won’t, have their own space because Merry Hall has ghosts.  Vengeful spirits in fact.

Jumping back to the past we have Dolly who is lovestruck by showman Abel Wenham, unfortunately Abel is not entirely the paragon of virtue that everyone believes him to be, he’s certainly not above seducing Dolly and making her believe she means everything to him whilst using her as the star of his show.

What I enjoyed about this.

The writing was good, it’s a very easy book to get along with, I love a dual timeline and anything with the description ‘gothic’ always grabs my attention with ease.  On top of which I had no problem reading this with fairly indecent haste – however, I did have some issues which prevented this from becoming a book I loved.

Firstly, I didn’t really love Nell.  I thought some of her decisions were questionable and sometimes her train of thought went off in the strangest directions.  I did like Fern.  She was a typical prickly teenager, she also made some terrible decisions but they came across as more believable under the circumstances.

Secondly, and this is probably what really held me back was I didn’t feel any fear, there were plenty of things going bump in the night and clearly the Hall was occupied by the deceased but it didn’t scare me, it didn’t give me the heebies or deliver the gothic atmosphere that I was really hoping for.

I think The Ghosts of Merry Hall has a lot going for it and I think it will definitely find it’s audience.  And, I would be interested to see what the author comes up with next.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3 of 5 stars