#BookReview The Dower House Mystery by Patricia Wentworth
Read as e-book using a mix of Braille and TTS
Dean Street Press
Pub. 1925
I’ve been meaning to read Dean Street Press for ages as their books sound so enjoyable, so #DeanStreetDecember was the nudge I needed.
I loved the setup of this one; Amabel Grey takes a peculiar job to earn enough money to send her daughter on a chance of a lifetime trip abroad (to snag a rich husband!), thinking she’s a capable woman who doesn’t believe in ghosts and all will be fine. How hard could it be to be paid by the owner of a house to live there for 6 months to quash the local rumours that it’s haunted, which have made it impossible to rent out?
But of course as soon as she arrives strange and unsettling things start to happen, all of which sound ridiculous when explained out loud; someone laughing, a cat mewing, doors that were bolted at night being wide open in the morning, the feeling that someone is following you up the stairs. And all manner of other creepy little details to add to the tension:
“The house was very still, but twice the stillness was broken by that sound of light footsteps, jenny of course, moving about downstairs. She turned a page and forced her mind to follow the words. They remained words to her, separate words, no connecting thought to string them together. On other nights there had been a hundred sounds; the wind in the chimneys, the pattering of the rain, the unkempt ivy buffeting the windowpane, the faint scuttering of mice. Tonight there were none of these sounds, the house was very still. It was like the hush before a storm.”
The solution was a little absurd and I saw it coming but I didn’t mind as I was enjoying the main characters and the eerie atmosphere of the house so much, I just went with it!
A fortune teller, a past love, a mysterious missing girl and two dogs that run away in terror all make for a thoroughly entertaining read. #Bookstodon#DeanStreetDecember23@bookstodon
