This book was so masterfully told, so utterly gothic and charming with twists and turns of dread. The writing is beautiful, so descriptive I felt just as trapped as Olivia. When she arrives at Gallant the fear thickens, as her Uncle is long dead and the only Prior left is her cousin, Matthew. But, he wants nothing to do with Olivia, he wants her gone, and is seemingly fading away himself. There are only two servants on this vast estate, Hannah and Edgar, and they are kind but hold just as many secrets as the palatial mansion. Olivia is curious, about this family she knows nothing about, about the house, about her mother and father, about the crumbling garden wall with its iron door. And, if Matthew's father did not write her those letters, than who did? I was sucked into this novel, haunted by it. I felt as though I was a ghoul traversing the hallways, peering out from the shadows as Olivia chased her dreams. This novel was a dream, a nightmare, an idea about death and trying to cage something so ethereal. Death is an inevitability, no matter how hard you try to hold it back, to push it behind solid doors, it seeps out and finds you. Death comes for us all eventually. The ghouls in the books are a reminder of this, of past failures, mistakes, lives lost too young to a power beyond them. This story holds magic, but the insidious kind that cloys at the wind and threatens to rip your seams. Olivia is special though, as we find out in the novel, and maybe it is her uniqueness that changes everything and yet does not change anything about Gallant. She is unbound by the history of the place, torn between two worlds, two parts within herself. She is like the globe ever turning, with two Gallant's resting above and below. Where Olivia creates (whether art or growth in the garden) the Master destroys. They are a balance to one another. I especially loved the journal snipits and dark drawings throughout, which added to the gloom and despair. Her mother's story was so intriguing and I loved that it was an epic love story that affected Olivia so deeply. Familial love and trust is at the heart of this story, just as much as loss and death are inescapable.
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