Ghosts, Gossip & Guilt—Oh My!

House of Desolation is a gothic cocktail of secrets, specters, and society scandal that had me shivering one moment and swooning the next.

Welcome to Hargrave House, dear reader. Your stay will include bumps in the night, ghostly apparitions, the sound of a child laughing in the dark, and long buried secrets clawing their way to the surface. You may descend into madness, but fear not, the only way out is to confront it head on.

I’ll admit my bias: haunted houses and gothic atmospheres almost always land on my list of favorite reads. So when I saw this pitched for fans of Rebecca and Jane Eyre, how could I resist? I’d even add that readers who loved The Haunting of Hill House will find much to enjoy here. And enjoy it, I did. I absolutely loved this book.

We follow Sir Thomas Hargrave as he inherits the crumbling Hargrave House from his late uncle. With repairs urgently needed and his new bride Eleanor expecting their first child, Thomas throws himself into restoring the estate. But almost immediately, Eleanor begins to change. She grows distant, her moods shifting unpredictably. Servants whisper. She’s found sleepwalking, talking to someone who isn’t there. Soon, Thomas himself begins to witness the unexplainable.

Terrified for his wife and unborn child, he whisks Eleanor away to a seaside town, hoping distance will bring back the woman he loves. Instead, he discovers that Eleanor is haunted by far more than the walls of Hargrave House.

House of Desolation is a chilling, beautifully wrought gothic that asks whether love can truly heal all wounds or if some pasts are too dark to escape.