64. Starling House by Alix E Harrow

listened on Libby

320 pgs.

2023
Adult Gothic mystery
Finished 7/15/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.81
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Kentucky

My comments: I didn't take notes and as I go to write this many months later, I can't remember the nitty gritty, but I do remember that this was an interesting read.

Goodreads synopsis:  A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

4. The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

listened on Audible (purchased with one credit)

2024
304 pgs.
Adult contemporary ("gothic") mystery
Finished 1/17/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.12
My rating: 5
Setting: Huge mansion in contemporary NC mountains

My comments:  A contemporary "gothic" mystery told in three voices - two of them in real time and one in letters from 2013.  This is the first modern gothic that I've read that I've actually liked.  So well done!  Twists and turns, of course, and so many questions as you read along.  One rich, greedy family vs. a couple of cunning, clever women and a super kindhearted man.  Certainly kept me interested.  Whose accounting should I trust?

Goodreads synopsis:  When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden.

But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

157. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Book ONE of TWO

Listened on Libby/TPPL

narrated by Christie Moreau
Unabridged audio (10:45)
2020
384 pgs.
YA Mystery
Finished 12/29/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.15 - 8651 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: Huge gothic mansion and estate in Texas

First line/s: "When I was a kid, my mom constantly invented games."

My comments:  I'm not sure what I expected from this, perhaps something in the line of The Westing Game, but that's not what it was.  Lots and lots of characters, (yes, like the Westing Game) made it confusing at times, a huge Gothic house that was really hard to imagine, and the girl put into a situation that, even at the end of this part of the story, was impossible to believe.  Making her the heiress and not his four brilliant grandsons....ever?  Sure.  Give me a break!  Reading the next installment will be difficult if this first one isn't reread just prior - there are so many people and bits of information that should probably be remembered in order to move forward in good faith - I hope there's a good summarization somewhere on the internet, lol!  

Goodreads synopsis:  A Cinderella story with deadly stakes and thrilling twists, perfect for fans of One of Us is Lying and Knives Out.

          Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why--or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man's touch--and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes.
          Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he's determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather's last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

39. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

Listened on Audible
read by Andrew Wincott, Esther Wane, Sarah Feathers, Anjana Vason
Unabridged audio (10:32)
2019 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
352 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 4/28/19
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 2669 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Contemporary England

First line/s: "If you'll permit me, said the Stranger, I'd like to tell you a story."

My comments:  I've read other Eli Griffiths books and greatly enjoyed them...and I enjoyed this one too, just not quite as much.  There were three major voices in the story, and three different voices narrated it, which was nice.  It kept skipping quickly between those voices and would probably have been a little more confusing without the change of speaker.  A fourth voice was that of a deep, old-fashioned British male voice reading the short story, "The Stranger," divided into four or five short parts, which were inserted here and there throughout the book.  Plot points overlapped, they didn't flow - each speaker didn't pick up and continue in the same place that the previous speaker stopped.  This was disconcerting at times.  And I had deep uncertainties about Claire which were difficult to let go - how many mothers would happily let their 15-year-old daughter date a 21-year-old man, no matter how much of a sweetheart he was?  Having this sort of cloud hanging over the head of one of the protagonists was hard to shake.  And even though everything was wrapped up by the end, it seemed as if something was missing.  Hmmmm.  Oh well.  It was in interesting mystery.....

Goodreads synopsis:  From the author of the beloved Ruth Galloway series, a modern gothic mystery for fans of Magpie Murders and The Lake House.
          Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favourite literature. 
          To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn't hers, left on the page of an old diary: "Hallo, Clare. You don’t know me." 
          Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger” has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?

51. The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

read on my iPhone
2018 Gallery/Scout Press
320 pgs.
Genre/Level
Finished  6/10/18
Goodreads rating:  4.01 - 3406 ratings
My rating:  2
Setting:Contemporary Brighton & Cornish coast, seems like "Gothic"...

First line/s:  "The magpies are back.  It's strange to think how much I used to hate them when I first came to the house.  I remember coming up the drive in the taxi from the station, seeing them lined up along the garden wall like that, preening their feathers."

My comments:  Such a disappointment......
          I was certain, as I began reading this book, that I would love it. How wrong I was. I found it boring, slow, and much too easy to figure out.  There was really no mystery, very few surprises, and cookie cutter characters. I’ve read so many great books lately, but this wasn’t one of them. Very disappointing, and it seems that I am among the minority – people are loving this for some reason, I’m not sure why.…

Goodreads synopsis:   From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, and The Lying Game comes Ruth Ware’s highly anticipated fourth novel.
          On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.
          Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it.
          Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, this is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

10. Heroes Are My Weakness - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

2014, William Morrow

364 pgs.

Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Finished 1/28/2015

Goodreads rating: 3.68

My rating:   5-Really, really liked it

TPPL

Setting:  Isolated Maine island, Contemporary winter

1st sentence/s: "She didn't usually talk to her suitcase, but she wasn't exactly herself these days."

My comments:   I really enjoyed this book.  I remember eating up all sorts of English manor/stern male/savvy governess stories when I was a young adult and for some reason this reminded me of them - even though it took place in contemporary Maine!  The setting....an island way off the coast of Maine, only visited by a ferry once every six weeks, AND in the middle of winter, are all things that are either very familiar or somewhat familiar. I loved the characters, and I loved the puppets.  Puppets?  In our heroine's head the voices of her five "dummies" occasionally pop up.  At first I thought it would be irritating, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying the way that Annie's thoughts were shown through those puppet's voices.  And the relationship between Annie and Theo?  DELIGHTFUL!  Funny, thoughtful....real.  The two of them had me giggling over and over again.  Yup, I had a blast with this story. (But I really don't like the cover.  It looks like a nonfiction.  It could have been SO much better.)

Goodreads book summary:  The dead of winter.

An isolated island off the coast of Maine.

A man.

A woman.

A sinister house looming over the sea ...

He's a reclusive writer whose macabre imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill with laughs.

But she's not laughing now. When she was a teenager, he terrified her. Now they're trapped together on a snowy island off the coast of Maine. Is he the villain she remembers or has he changed? Her head says no. Her heart says yes.

It's going to be a long, hot winter.