The Haunting of Whitehall Manor - L.V. Pires - ★★★★

AUTHOR: L.V. Pires

SERIES: The Towry Family, #1

GENRE: Gothic Horror

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A Gothic Horror with some intriguing characters. Went a tad beyond my comfort level in terms of horrifying scenes, but that’s on me and not the book. Enjoyed the rest of it.

Story Synopsis:

Thirty-three-year-old Anne Towry has lived away from her family since she was ten. Forced to go to boarding school and ordered by her mother Seraphine never to return. she has spent all these years remembering hardly anything about her roots, except that she hates her mother. But when she receives an urgent phone call from a Dr. Cornish telling her that her mother is missing, Anne is forced to return to her childhood home, Whitehall Manor, in the hopes of locating her mother and then rushing back. Things aren’t that easy though. Anne sees that the state of the Whitehall estate isn’t as it was in her childhood days. Moreover, when she finds Seraphine’s journal, she is shocked at the revelations therein. As the days go by, things turn more and more horrifying, and Anne begins to question her own sanity. What is the truth behind the macabre happenings at Whitehall?

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Anne and Seraphine (through her journals.)

Bookish Yays:

👻 I love the flawed main characters of this book and how realistic they seemed despite being extreme in some aspects. More importantly, the character voices are quite authentic. Anne sounds thirty-three and not like someone in her early twenties. She is whiny and irritating at times, but also courageous and determined. Her not being a typical Ms. Goody-two-shoes makes her first person narration interesting. Her parents are also intricately sketched, making it tough for us to take sides.

👻 Mental health has an important role to play in the plot, and the author uses the Gothic horror advantage to push the limits of this portrayal.

👻 Though not the primary intention of the novel, I appreciate how it highlighted the difficulty of escaping a toxic relationship. It’s quite easy to say ‘leave your partner’, but real life isn’t always so easy. The book embodies this sentiment well.

👻 The pace of the book is more or less steady from start to end.

👻 The suspense elements are good. Some twists, I saw coming but still enjoyed. And some twists left me astonished.

👻 The writing in Seraphine’s journals seemed overly elaborate, not like typical journals at all. I was initially going to put this as a Nay, but then noticed that the plot clarifies the reason for this writing style. I appreciate this because many novels using the discovered journals trope forget that a diary should sound like a diary.

👻 A Gothic story is nothing without a creepy house, and Whitehall Manor fits in the requirements to the T. I loved the way the author used the house and its various wings and rooms, and also its gardens, to enhance the spookiness.

👻 While I am not a fan of romance in non-romance genre books, I liked how it was handled in this novel. Anne, though her first person pov, acknowledges to us her initial need for a ‘fling’ than talking about instant attraction and butterflies in her stomach at the sight of Terran the groundskeeper. It was an adult relationship, between two consenting adults, and was written as such.

Bookish Nays:

☠ A tad repetitive at times, especially in the journals. I am not sure if this was done deliberately to show Seraphine’s mental state.

☠ Some really gruesome scenes in the final quarter. This isn’t the book’s shortcoming to be honest, but for me, it is a ‘Nay’ as I am not comfortable with that kind of gory content.

☠ Terran’s background was fuzzy till the end. I would have liked to know more about his backstory, so as to understand his character better.

☠ Pet peeve: How can characters not read journals in one go? Why do they read it an entry at a time? 😬 (Okay, I know the answer to this. Authors need to extend the suspense, after all. But I still want to complain about it!)

All in all, this is Gothic Horror in every sense. The plot, the atmosphere, the characters, and of course, the house – all come together to create a memorable experience.

Definitely recommend this indie gem. As the first of the Towry Family series, the book is complete in all its arcs and doesn’t end on any cliffhanger. I’m looking forward to see what life holds for Anne Towry in the sequel.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through StoryOrigin. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The book is available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

To read my review of the second book in this series - 'The Curse of Whitehall Manor', click HERE.

To read my review of the third book in this series - 'The Fall of Whitehall Manor', click HERE.