This House is Haunted

This House is Haunted by John Boyne     304 pages

From Goodreads:

1867. Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall on a dark and chilling night. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.

When she finally arrives, shaken, at the hall she is greeted by the two children in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There are no parents, no adults at all, and no one to represent her mysterious employer. The children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, a second terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong.

From the moment she rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence which lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realises that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past…

My Review:

The creepy atmosphere and the unanswered questions really set the spooky tone for this story. Following Eliza Caine, who i
s seemingly dropped into a completely blind into a manor full of secrets, you, the reader, are as desperate as she is to get to the bottom of the strange and treacherous happenings at Gaudlin Hall. With this story, Boyne parodies Dickens's style of story writing - slow paced, a bit creepy with a tinge of scary, and a cast of odd and mysterious characters embody the work. I loved ever bit of it - it's a ghost story, but one that slowly reveals itself. It's no thriller, and yet it still manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. I loved how each layer is peeled back carefully and in such a way that only bits and pieces of the story reveal themselves at a time. Yes, I was able to come to some conclusions earlier on than their reveal, but I didn't mind - the writing and the narrator, Eliza, are so well put together.

The one thing that really disappointed me was the ending - I understand why Boyne decided to leave the book on that particular note, but I didn't care for it. Perhaps it won't bother anyone, but for me, it was unsatisfactory.

While not scary, I enjoyed reading this through the month of October. It has spooky elements and it very much inhabited the spirit of spooky ghost stories. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a ghost story wrapped up in an historical era drama.