The Quickening

The English country house ghost story is one of my most favourite genres. A reading of "The Turn of the Screw" is an annual undertaking. 

Here, Rhiannon Ward has provided a novel in this long tradition that will, I believe, satisfy most lovers of such supernatural tales. 

Set in 1925, the story starts in London with Louisa Drew receiving a telegram requiring her attendance at a photography studio. 

Here a "rather unusual commission" is offered, asking her to go to a house in Sussex to photograph both the house and its contents for a forthcoming auction. The family were selling up and moving to India. 
Although heavily pregnant, Louisa who feels trapped in an unhappy marriage and needing the money, immediately accepts the offer and leaves for Clewer Hall. 

Before she leaves, she is told, that the family lost all three sons in the war and the house has a certain reputation. 

Once arriving at Clewer Hall, she detects and undefinable sense of sadness and learns that it was the scene of a notorious sceance held in 1896, attended amongst others, by that great spiritualist champion, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

What happened at this sceance nearly 30 years previously would be the key to unlocking the deep secrets that has haunted the Clewer family. 

The author has written a wonderfully atmospheric tale, evoking the dark and decaying house with all its menance. 
We have such treats as the sound of a piano when it is no longer in use and strange images appearing on developed photographs. A feeling of unease and foreboding is ever present. 

If you like a good haunting tale then this is highly recommended.

Rhiannon Ward may be a new name but you'll probably recognise Sarah Ward. I've featured her accomplished police procedural series, set in modern-day Derbyshire, on the blog a few times before and she's definitely one of my favourite modern crime-fiction authors. Rhiannon Ward is a pseudonym for launching The Quickening, her first foray into historical fiction, although fans of Sarah's previous novels will be pleased to find another well-turned mystery, albeit one filled with the gothic and supernatural, at the heart of this latest work. 

Set in the afternmath of the First World War, The Quickening is a novel suffused with grief and its aftermath. Having lost her husband in the trenches, and her two sons from Spanish Flu soon after, Louisa Drew has resigned herself to be thankful for a life of dutiful wifehood - and a second chance at motherhood - with her staid and emotionally repressed second husband Edwin. But when her former employer offers her a lucrative commission amidst the faded glory of Clewer Hall, Louisa can't resist one last chance to live the life she thought she'd lost.

Packing her camera equipment, she heads for Clewer Hall, another house in mourning for people and opportunities lost. But are the Clewer family all that they seem? Why does no one talk about the child seen in the garden? Or the piano that Louise can hear playing within long-deserted room? What happened during that infamous seance and why does it haunt the house still? And, most importantly, what does it want with Louisa and her unborn child?

The Quickening is packed to the rafters with so much atmosphere that it lifts off the page, enveloping the reader in it's grasp. I could immediately envisage the faded glamour of Clewer Hall - from the remnants of the wisteria clinging to crumbling brickwork through to the sadness of a long-unused nursery with its broken chairs and barred windows, reading the book had me walking alongside Louisa as she gradually uncovered more and more of the house's secrets. 

Ward absoutely nails the atmosphere too. Clewer Hall, with its greatly reduced serving staff and impoverished family both still sticking rigourously to pre-War notions of social hierarchy, feels as if it is stuck in a time-warp, forever trapped on the evening of the seance in 1896. It lends a gothic tone to a novel that has a distinctly modern protagonist - Louise is forthright, determined, and has a refreshing lack of propriety that carries through Clewer Hall like a breath of fresh air.

Despite this modernity, Louisa doesn't feel out of time or place. Having developed a successful career during the war, it makes sense for Louisa to yearn to retain this freedom, whilst also hoping to regain some of the stability she has lost with the death of her husband and sons. I really got a sense of the period as a time of change through Louisa - caught between the possibilities now afforded to her as an educated and capable woman in a world where war has upset traditional hierarchies, and Victorian attitudes that still demand a level of respectability and conformity from her, even at the expense of her own happiness. It's fair to say that, as the book went on, I definitely became as invested in Louisa's own personal dilemmas as I was in the resolution of Clewer Hall's many mysteries, so much did I come to identify and empathise with her!

Without giving away any of the plot, which unravels with the skill and elegance demonstrated so ably in Ward's previous novels, I will say that The Quickening infuses a very human tale of personal folly and family tragedy with a chilling slice of the supernatural. The spooky elements aren't overplayed but, in the manner of Laura Purcell's The Silent Companions or Sarah Waters The Little Stranger, something haunts the narrative and the characters, causing both them and the reader to question their sanity and actions. It's brilliantly done and I raced through the book, desperate to know what happened back in 1896, and what would happen to Louisa and the Clewer family as a result. 

As you can probably tell, I absolutely loved The Quickening. Combining a country house mystery with a classic ghost story was always going to be a winner for me, especially when its as well-written and atmospherically evocative as this. Fans of Laura Purcell and Stacey Halls will enjoy the lush atmosphere, supernatural happenings and chilling gothic overtones, whilst fans of Ward's modern day procedurals will find a novel that retains Ward's knack for strong characters and precision plotting whist transposing them onto a new era and genre.

This book is twisty and atmospheric, seriously creepy, and has an inspiring central character I was rooting for. Mystery, ghosts and a hint of romance - what’s not to love?

The Quickening is a darkly gothic novel, set between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. It explores many themes, such as  spiritualism, women's suffrage movement, grief, love and the secrets that haunt us. 
It begins in England, in 1925. Louisa's husband was killed in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly re-married to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa travels to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction. The story deepens, and we are taken back thirty years, to a dark mystery that Louisa must unravel. Long held secrets, ghosts and fate all intertwine to create a novel that is beautifully, hauntingly, and heartbreakingly written. If you like The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, or the The Familiars by Stacey Halls, you will love this novel,

My word did I love this book! 

"Feminist gothic fiction set between the late 19th century and the early 20th century - an era of burgeoning spiritualism and the suffragette movement - that couldn't be more relevant today" - I couldn't have put it better myself!

Louisa is a photographer, quite something for a woman of her time, and pregnant to boot. She accepts a commission that takes her to Clewer Hall, a stately home with secrets lurking behind every door. She is asked to photograph the home, along with its contents as the owners are selling up and moving away (to get away from something, or someone? maybe!). 

With her due date fast approaching and a completely unsupportive second husband at home, Louisa must hastily catalog everything before her baby arrives. 

But, as with a good gothic mysteries, all is not as it seems. There are strange goings-on, and Louisa is determined to find out what or who is behind them. 

The characters in The Quickening were fantastic. All well-formed, and entirely realistic, I do have a special place in my heart though for Louisa, our head-strong feministic protagonist, and Ada, our quirky and unreliable medium. 

A dual timeline gothic ghost story set in a grand but dilapidated manor house, with intriguing characters, mystery aplenty, and more atmosphere than you could shake a stick at,  The Quickening will appeal to fans of Sarah Waters, Laura Purcell, and Stacey Halls.

I loved this gothic ghost story, set in an English country house between the end of the 19th century and just after the First World War.

The protagonist Louisa, is a photographer who accepts a commission to photograph auction items at Clewer Hall during the last few weeks of her pregnancy. I really enjoyed her character and the pregnancy gave the story a race-against-time urgency as her due date approaches.

The story is atmospheric, haunting and has an intriguing mystery at the core.  Pretty much a perfect read for me.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Some books you just know from the first words you’re going to love and this was one of them for me.  This book is my favourite kind of historical novel.  It has everything you need to make a classic gothic novel; a big old deteriorating house, strange paranormal goings on and a real sense of atmosphere and mystery.  This book is full of intrigue and really great characters especially the main character Louisa Drew.

It is 1925 and Louisa Drew is asked to photograph Clewer Hall in Sussex and it’s contents for an auction house.  Desperate for money after having recently remarried and seven months pregnant she accepts the commission.  Unknown to Louise Clewer Hall was host to an infamous seance in 1896 which was widely reported in the press at the time.  The seance has haunted the family’s lives ever since.  In one final attempt to break the seances legacy the lady of the house has decided to recreate the original seance inviting as many of the original attendees as possible before the family moves.  Louisa although only there to take photos finds herself becoming more and more involved in the secrets of the house.