A country house murder which is not a detective novel. Lynx′s gift of being able to remove grief from a person is revealed in the first chapter. It′s important not just for setting up the role of grief nurse but for showing that the emotions of the characters are real and deeply felt. Subsequently later in the book we don′t take the characters, many of whom are unpleasant, at face value.
Lynx is the grief nurse for a well-off family that lives on an island, and it is the death of their son that brings the cast together in this remote location. When other deaths follow, it appears to be related to this first death but as the story unfolds an older history begins to be revealed.
The story is told in a linear fashion but there are numerous flashbacks from Lynx which have multipe points of view due to her ability to enter into the emotions and memories of her ″patients″.
Lynx is a sympathetic character both in our reaction to her and her connection to other people. This sympathy, even when she rightly becomes angry, is her greatest strength.
I particularly liked the subtle revealing of different aspects of the characters and plot. This was an original fantasy book with a unique concept.

Would you jump at the chance to have your grief, dread, and sorrow stripped away as soon as they arose so you no longer felt those emotions, you only felt “Bright”?

I thought absolutely! That would be amazing! Sounds ideal! But I almost guarantee that you’ll change your mind after reading The Grief Nurse. Without grief, we forget the reasons we felt love, we forget how much someone meant to us if we aren’t able to grieve their passing.

The Grief Nurse tells the tale of the race of Grief Nurses, whose only purpose in life is to take their guardian’s grief, keeping them “Bright” at all times - perhaps a better name for them would be Grief Servants. They are tied to their guardian family, are nothing without them, but their guardian family is also nothing without their grief nurse. They are highly sought-after for their grief-removing abilities, but what happens when a grief nurse is wronged?

It raises quite a few ethical issues, as well as highlights the divide between those with money and those without. It focuses on false appearances, love, madness and of course grief.

I adored this story, much more than I expected to! It sounded interesting from the beginning but it was so much deeper and multi-faceted. Really worth a read in my opinion!

This is an interesting debut from an author showing some promise. I enjoyed the premise and the queer representation, as well as the atmosphere and overall tone.

However, I found the execution of the premise and the worldbuilding a bit perfunctory. There was a lot of reliance on Initial Capitals for common words to show that they were in fact Different and Important. I needed a little more to really feel connected to the world.

Thank you to the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

The Grief Nurse is an intimate and heart-wrenching story that explores the theme of grief in a unique and authentic way. Low fantasy, mystery and romance are mixed together in this immersive and haunting gothic family drama.

This story follows Lynx, who works as a Grief Nurse for the Aster family. Life on their private secluded island of Mount Sorcha isn’t too eventful, until the eldest Aster son turns up dead. Tensions rise as guests come to pay their respects, and it doesn’t take long for bodies to start piling up.

I found the premise of this story to be incredibly compelling and I think that the theme work was the strongest aspect of this novel by a mile. I was very impressed with the way that the importance of grief, in all its various forms, is explored in this story. And I also found the whole idea of these highly coveted Grief Nurses being used as a type of currency among the high society families also equally interesting and tragic.

That said, I think the overall execution of this story left something to be desired. To me, the world building felt a bit weak in places, with made-up terms and magical abilities being left unexplained.
And even though this is a very character-driven story, I personally found the characters to be a bit one-dimensional. Lynx’s inner monologue felt a bit tedious to me and I just didn’t buy into the interpersonal relationships here. So for a story that could/should have been very emotionally impactful, I found it quite disappointing that I ended up feeling rather apathetic by the end.

Now, I did love the overall atmosphere of this story! The Scottish aesthetic, the eerie island setting, the high society classism... it all gave this book a very unique flair that I personally found to be very captivating and immersive.
And there is some good queer representation that I really appreciated, though I would have loved it if the author leaned more into the romance aspects to explore those complex relationships a bit depeer.

Overall, I think this is a promising debut novel that offers a fresh and unique take on the fantasy genre. If you are looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally-driven story that explores grief in interesting ways, then this is a great one to pick up!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sandstone Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I think I'd give this a 3.5 rating. Overall i enjoyed the book and the premise was intriguing. Loved the descriptions of the island and the atmosphere. A couple issues were that it felt a little rushed and i think it could benefit from a little more development. The end of some characters' stories felt unfinished. And the beginning did confuse me a little at times with the sudden transition to a memory. Would love to read what happens next. This book did raise some good questions, however.

It's an interesting idea for a fantasy story and definitely caught my attention, the idea of nurses hired by the rich to consume their grief. But it just didn't deliver for me. The world-building didn't feel complete and it was hard to connect with the characters, sadly not a winner for me. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

An enjoyable foray into a unique gothic world of glamour and Brightness.

The world is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby golden era blended with a gothic island and a touch of murder mystery. I found it beautifully descriptive and enjoyed the magic system of Grief Nurses. The characters are complex and at times brittle and abrasive, but I thought this added to the atmosphere and gothic drama.

At times the pace was a bit slow, but never enough to interrupt my enjoyment. I did struggle with some of the details of the story as things came to a climax. I don't want to include any spoilers, but a little more clarity around the mechanics of the "mind palaces", for want of a better word, and her differing abilities would have helped. I just wanted to know more and more, but that is more to do with personal preference.

I loved the refreshing exploration of grief and sadness and how we need a full spectrum of emotions to truly live! A highly recommended read.

This was an intriguing and compelling premise that was largely successful for me. I found the worldbuilding absolutely gripping from the start - the notion of Lynx, a Grief Nurse who keeps the members of this family Bright, aka unbothered by negative and painful emotions, and the mixture of reactions that creates for Lynx, was definitely something new and I really enjoyed it. The setting, with its take on the Roaring Twenties, was also nicely ominous with the island and being cut off, although I would have liked a little more specificity - whereabouts was it in the world? How long had the Aster family lived there?

There were also some parts of the worldbuilding that were harder for me to grasp. The notion of being a Fader was intregral to the book but I kept having to recheck what this meant. I also wasn't sure about how the Grief nurses were both so in demand and also shunned and rejected with a low societal status. Perhaps a bit more of a background would have helped me here to have grasped everything more easily.

What I did also realy like the casual queerness, with multiple queer characters and same-sex marriage commonplace.

Overall, while it wasn't perfect, it was a really interesting, thoughtful, and enjoyable debut. I look forward to hearing more from the author in the future.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*

This book sounded very promising but sadly didn’t quite do it for me.
The writing wasn’t bad but I couldn’t really get into it and it kinda dragged on. I also couldn’t connect to the characters at all, probably because we don’t find out much about them.
The world building was pretty much nonexistent and I had only a very shallow idea of how the world, society and grief nurses worked. It seemed by not giving explanations, the author was trying to make it seem mysterious so the reader would want to keep going but that just didn’t work for me. At 30% I still had no real idea what was going on and what the story was supposed to be and for me that is too far in for it to deliver so little.
I was also hoping for some nice gothic vibes which were kinda there but I still couldn’t really feel them, like they just stayed on the page and didn’t come alive.

Easy read, dystopian reality.
Lynx is a grief nurse, she’s takes away their feelings of trouble and grief leaving them Bright.
Lynx works for the rich Aster family. Secrets abound. Tragedy hits. Twists and turns. Compelling read.
Current time is interspersed with background stories.
I like the idea that grief can be taken away, but think we need to feel grief to grow and learn.

Thank you NetGalley and Sandstone Press Ltd for the copy of Grief Nurse.

The concept behind this novel was unique and has the potential. I enjoyed how grief is dealt with, or isn’t, but the pacing and characters fell flat with me. The pacing wasn’t quite right to keep me intrigued and I found I wasn’t overly bothered by the characters and what would happen.

For a fairly short book, it felt like there was a lot squeezed within the pages.

I found it hard to get my head around what was happening in The Grief Nurse to begin with, but did find answers to most of my questions within the book.

I adored the atmosphere of this book, it felt like a classic novel, set in the party era of 20s/ 30s aristocracy, but is set in an alternative world where Grief is tangible to some and the ability to 'possess' a Grief Nurse means you'll never need to suffer the various pains again. Not only do you avoid suffering, but you are also one of the elite if you have been able to have one yourself. So as well as the party feel of the rich, we also get a glimpse into the seedier side of the rich and there is a spooky, mysterious element as the reader tries to figure out what's going on and what the risks are.

The novel invites us to consider the possession of humans for the benefit of the powerful and what that means for the humans who happen to be born to serve others.

Obviously, given the title, there is a lot of discussion about grief; is there a benefit to the experience or should we all want rid of it if we could?

I found myself slowly empathising with Lynx as the story goes on, but it took some time for me to connect. There were some lovely Scottish elements without the story being explicitly set in an alternate Scotland; Potato Scones, Shortbread and heather are enjoyable Scots elements. There were also queer quaracters who weren't breaking any kind of stigma to be openly gay, which was comforting to read.

I have a funny feeling I'll be thinking about this book for a while after reading and definitely wonder what came next.

The Grief Nurse is an atmospheric novel and a really interesting premise, but I didn't really understand the relationship mechanism between grief nurses, faders and "normal" people.

I think to enjoy this book you've got to go with it, enjoy the moods and emotions, but not think to hard about the whys and wherefores. Unfortunately for me, I'm a bit of a "whys and wherefores" sort of person, so the book didn't really work for me, but I know that some members of my book group would love it.

Recommended as long as you don't need your books to always make complete sense.

Loved loved loved this story.
It was confusing in some parts particularly at the beginning (still not sure what a faded is either) and the author needed you to just go with it and not fight for complete understanding I felt. So many plot devices going on- it was exhilarating to read. The descriptions of grief were intense and evocative.
Our protagonist lynx is a grief nurse and is able to take feelings of sorrow and grief from the host leaving them ‘bright’ Working for a rich family (after all it’s only the poor who must struggle through their grief) she is equally respected and feared. After a member of the family dies, people gather together and secrets are revealed.

I loved the main character and particularly towards the end of the book found her much more fleshed out though some of the ‘romantic/ physical attraction’ parts seemed a bit YA or thrown in - they weren’t well developed so seemed a little tokenistic.
I would read more by this author for sure.

Thanks to netgalley and to the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I did enjoy this exploration of grief and loss in Angie Spoto’s debut novel. She has created a world in which the wealthy and the privileged (not necessarily both) have grief nurses. Distinguished by their white hair, these are people who can see and take others’ grief by means of touching their tokens – the receptacle for their grief. Such people – and they tend to be women – serve aristocratic families and we learn that grief nurses are passed down through families – they are inherited like valuable gems or old paintings

The Grief Nurse is a first person narrative by Lynx, a grief nurse in service to the Asters, a family who value their power and status, but whose old money is no longer as valuable as once it was. But ownership of a grief nurse is still a sign of the highest status and the Asters take every opportunity to put Lynx on display.

As the novel opens the Aster family are holding a wake for their eldest son on their island, Mount Sorcha and have invited the great and the good to attend. Lynx has taken away the grief of Mr and Mrs Aster so they are ‘Bright’ and keen to show off their lack of grief to their acquaintances. It is not just grief that Lynx can take; she also consumes dread and sorrow.

Angie Spoto’s world is full of beautifully named characters and is wonderfully atmospheric and replete with the most gothic imagery. Part murder mystery, part a meditation on the nature of grief, Spoto explores the nature of grief through her characters and contemplates the pros and cons of taking grief away.

Spoto’s descriptions of what happens to a grief nurse when she is taking away a grief and the representation of that action is very well done.

There were aspects I would have liked to see better explained – I did not wholly understand what a fader is, for example, but overall this was a beautifully written and fascinating book with a really innovative and impactful idea at its core.

Lynx is a terrific character. This is her coming of age story as she learns more about her power and how to use it as well as the impact that taking on so much grief has on her. Many of the characters are beautifully queer in a society where this is unexceptional.

Though this is an adult novel, it would not feel out of place in an older Y/A library.

Verdict: Well written with an interesting premise that captures the imagination, The Grief Nurse is fantasy grounded in a very real exploration of the nature of grief.

Headlines:
A dystopian feeling world
Gothic and historical vibes
Power or weakness

What if Agatha Christie clashed with a dystopian world obsessed with grief and it's relief? The Grief Nurse contained an eclectic bunch of upstairs downstairs people 'trapped' on an island having a power struggle. Who needed who? Did the grief nurses need their guardians or did the guardians need their grief nurses more? Was grief an outpouring of weakness or did it render power? These were the questions running through my head from the front to the back of this book.

The start to this story was a little jarring to me, I struggled to find my footing in the world, how it worked, who was who and why things were the way they were. As I kept reading things did fall into place but I would have benefitted from a more linear introduction I think. Lynx was the MC, a grief nurse, a servant owned by the rich Aster family. She was surrounding by a collection of characters, most of whom were unlikeable with the exception of Orion (in my opinion).

Bodies began to pile up and things got really interesting as a power struggle in the family but also in the context of grief nurses and ownership ensued. Lynx was pretty isolated as a character and I felt for her in this. Despite some promising allies, Lynx wasn't really able to trust anyone. We got some twisty late reveals that I didn't expect and the plot kept the pages turning.

Overall, this was a really unusual concept that I was mostly on board with. I liked the gothic feels, the remote island that gave a locked-in mystery vibe and the suspense.

Thank you to Sandstone Press for the review copy.

"Grief was love, and whoever said love didn’t hurt? That it was always joy and happiness?"

Lynx is a grief nurse, someone who is taken from their parents at an early age, trained, and given to rich ‘Guardians’, whom they serve. They can magically take away any sadness or sorrow, kind of ‘feeding’ on it, taking it into themselves. Sometimes they can even see flashes of the memories of whoever they’re helping.

Lynx has an odd relationship with her Guardians, the Asters. When the story begins, Mr Aster is begging her to take away the pain of losing one of his sons, who has died by suicide. Lynx helps the whole family except the oldest son, Eridanus, who chooses to hold onto his sorrow, because he doesn’t want to forget anything about his brother, a choice which means his family has shunned him. Then there is the daughter, Andromeda, with whom Lynx is impossibly in love.

The whole family gathers at the Aster house for a ‘death party’, held to celebrate someone who has passed away. But, the party will come at a deadly cost with events that seek to destroy the Asters, and Lynx, including an encounter with another grief nurse.

This story felt a little convoluted at times and while I didn’t struggle to keep up, I felt it could do with more structure. Chapters that flash between past and present aren’t labelled so the reader sometimes reads multiple paragraphs before realising a part of the text takes place in a different timeline.

I also struggled to connect with Lynx as a character. I wish I knew better why. I found her a bit lukewarm and although I had sympathy for her, I battled to empathise. She does draw some interesting and noteworthy conclusions about grief, which I enjoyed.

This is a Sapphic fantasy about love, choice, heartache and triumph. I loved the concept but not so much the execution.

Such an interesting concept! A world where the rich use a Grief Nurse to take away their sorrow, dread and heartbreak. If someone could take yours would you allow them too?

The writing is really good and the story certainly gave me a lot to think about - does grief have a value? Perhaps grief is something we feel we ‘owe’ the departed?

I did find that some parts could have done with more explanation particularly as it has that fantasy vibe. Faders for example were never really fully explained. You are plunged right into the action at the start without any background so I found I had to go back and reread once I had a little more information on the role of the grief nurse, the family and the setting.

Nonetheless this was an enjoyable and interesting read.

Thanks to Sandstone and NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy

This haunting historical fantasy-slash-mystery novel is set in an alternate reality, where the pangs and pain of undesirable emotions can be removed – but only for those well-off enough to afford the services of a Grief Nurse. These skilled individuals are ‘kept’, safe but isolated, at the heart of wealthy families such as the Asters, and shared between individuals: when the Asters’ eldest son passes away, their Nurse Lynx is on hand to soothe away the sorrow and anguish felt by the immediate family. As guests arrive for the wake at the secluded island of Mount Sorcha, the Asters’ family seat, it isn’t long before more deaths occur and it starts to look as though something – or someone – is out to wreak havoc within this privileged family unit. The clever concept at the heart of the novel – that grief can be physically removed from an individual – is deftly explored, with frequent meditations on the nature of suffering and loss, and whether it is better to fully experience one’s emotions or have them whisked away. Angie Spoto writes beautifully, with tiny vignettes showing connection between characters that linger in the mind long after the book’s dramatic conclusion, and astonishing descriptions of the otherworldly state that Lynx and her fellow Grief Nurses enter when removing emotion from their ‘owners’. An unexpected and affecting book, with a deeply thoughtful core premise.

This was such a good book. I love historical fiction, especially when it is about eras/ situations that I previously knew nothing about and this was definitely one of those books. It was so well researched and so compelling in its narrative that not only did I love reading it but I felt that I learned too. A really enjoyable read and perfect for any fans of historical fiction. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.