This was another of the books included as part of the Reclaim Her Name project, which republished a collection of works by women authors who had had to use a penname because of negative attitudes towards women, but now puts the author’s real name on their work. Originally, A Phantom Lover was published under the name Vernon Lee.

Though it’s actually fairly short in length, that doesn’t stop it from being a really delightful gothic novel. It’s told in the first person by a portrait artist who has been invited to the Okehurst estate in order to paint a woman named Alice Oke, who lives there with her husband, William Oke. The artist becomes really quite obsessed with Alice, because he finds her to be intoxicatingly beautiful in a rather unconventional way. But his fascination with Alice soon evolves beyond an interest in her appearance, as she reveals herself to be a very aloof, enigmatic and mysterious woman who is practically obsessed with the actions of one her long-distant ancestors. Strangely, she also looks identical to the painting of a lady from her family’s past too. Soon it becomes clear that there are serious problems in their relationship – the artist even stays longer than necessary just to observe then with a kind of morbid curiosity.

The three main characters are all very well developed, from the curious (yet detached) artist, to the melancholy Alice whose head is in the past and William, a fairly silly man who takes himself too seriously. Their lives are then set against the backdrop of Okehurst – a very vivid setting which really helps to bring the story to life, you can really see the creepy old estate. It’s such an enjoyable tale, that I am surprised it’s fallen into relative obscurity. I really enjoyed it and hope that more people will have the opportunity to discover it soon. There’s so much mystery and intrigue throughout the story and you’ll find yourself wondering what’s actually going on – most likely, you won’t guess and the ending will catch off guard, because that’s what happened with me and I found the whole experience very enjoyable.

Rating: 8.6/10

Like many books that I read, I went into The Last Shadow without knowing anything about it. Literally nothing – I’d never even heard of it before, but the author requested that I review it for a free copy, and who am I to turn down a free book? As it turns out, I was very fortunate to be offered it, as it was an enjoyable novel which I’d never have read otherwise.

The story primarily revolves around two girls: Nadia and Kris, who both so happen to find themselves at the abandoned Bright Pool Amusement Park. As I’m sure you can tell, this is a horror novel, because what other genre ever uses an abandoned amusement park as a setting? Soon they encounter Alfredo the Ringmaster, an evil entity lurking in the shadows and find themselves coming up against all kind of evil creatures.

It’s a very vivid story, which paints a very colourful picture in your mind. I could quite easily imagine this as a horror movie that came out in the 80s. It’s got just the right mixture of extreme gore and violence, mixed together with just a bit of self-aware humour that can joke about how over the top some of the things which happen are. Sometimes it feels quite fun and campy, but that is then contrasted against the fact that the things which are happening to the characters are genuinely very harrowing.

As the story goes on, you also get to find out how about the lives which lead Kris and Nadia to this point and I liked that the complete backstory had been fully planned out for each character as it’s not something that always happens in this kind of genre. The only thing that’s a bit of a shame is that the end of the novel doesn’t really feel like the end of the story: it’s like its the end of a first episode in a TV series about the adventures of Nadia and Kris – but, then, if the author is planning a series of novels, then that may well have been intentional.

Aside from that, I did think that there was occasionally a sentence or two which sounded a bit strange. It wasn’t hugely problematic, but it kind of interrupted the flow of the story and would take me out of things from time to time. I’m not a literary snob, so it didn’t really bother me a huge amount, but I can imagine it being slightly more annoying for some people.

Overall though, this was a fun read. The whole book played out like a movie in my head, which isn’t something I can say of every book I’ve read and I found myself really enjoying the dialogue between the two main characters as it was often quite snarky or jokey, which made them both quite endearing. I also never would have guessed one of the twists which is revealed towards the end of the book, so that was a nice surprise. If that sounds like something up your street, I definitely think it’s worth a try. Fans of horror movies and vampire fiction will probably get a lot out of this.

Score: 8/10

Buy it here.

I always enjoy good gothic novels, so to some extent, it’s no surprise that I was very fond of Rebecca. Predominantly set at Manderley, a large estate in a quiet area not far from the ocean, the book explores anxiety, misogyny, abusive relationships and has a great sense of mystery throughout.

The main character, who we never learn the name of, ends up marrying an enigmatic widower named Maxim de Winter after a whirlwind romance and comes to live with him at Manderley. Our protagonist is also our narrator and throughout the story we get a good look into her mental state – she’s forever comparing herself to Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, and has a perpetual feeling of inadequacy. She’s a young, naïve woman who’s only around twenty years old – she interprets every little thing that people do as a response to perceived failures on her part. To some extent, her behaviour can occasionally be annoying – but that is just a testament to its realism. When people are as crippled by anxiety as the protagonist, it would seem annoying to hear them thinking everything is about them – and, indeed, it’s probably annoying to live to have your mind working in that way too!

Things aren’t made any easier by Mrs Danvers, one of the housekeepers at Manderley. Mrs Danvers was exceptionally fond of Rebecca and the two of them had a very close relationship – she openly compares the protagonist and Rebecca and wants to make her feel inferior. At first, she just seems to be a generally spiteful and malicious person, but as it goes on, you learn more about things that happened in her past and my view of her certainly softened as time went by.

And that’s one of the real strength of this novel: every character in the book is extremely flawed in some way: the protagonist, Mrs Danvers, Maxim and even Rebecca herself – yet they also all seem very real and their motives and reasons for behaving the way they do are easy to understand. While every character had at least one moment where I thought they came across very badly, every character also had a moment where I felt fondness (or at least sympathy) towards them as well – they were all good, well-rounded characters.

You’ll notice that I mentioned Rebecca herself among the flawed characters, despite the fact that she is dead when the novel begins. While she never actually appears in the present tense (and we also don’t get any flashbacks of her), we hear enough about her from all the other characters that she has just as much of a presence as anyone else. In fact, really, everything that happens in the novel is directly influence by her, even though she’s dead – it’s an interesting way of highlighting somebody’s legacy.

I think that a cast of well developed characters is enough to make an novel worth reading (side note: Maxim’s sister Beatrice is a very likeable character – she comes across as a very ‘loud’ but well-meaning person), but the fact that it has a mystery/thriller element as well only serves to make it even more of a page turner. I know some people think it’s a bit slow to start (I didn’t really think that), but other than that, there’s not much to fault this novel on.

Rating: 8.7/10

Buy it here.