The Parlour Game: A Victorian Ghost Story (The Corvidae Hauntings)
£2.80
DEATH IS ONLY THE BEGINNING… a dark gothic tale for fans of The Clockwork Girl and The Woman in Black.
London, 1873.
Ivy Granger, an amateur botanist, is plagued by disturbing dreams and faceless whispers. Misunderstood by her father, she fears for her sanity – threatened with the asylum or worse, the hands of a man she loathes.
But a stranger at her mother’s funeral reveals Ivy’s world has been a lie and she could have a different life, for she is capable of so much more…
Miss Earnshaw, London’s most renowned spiritualist, is Ivy’s only hope of revealing what secrets her mother took to the grave and discovering her true purpose.
Ivy’s journey for knowledge takes her to Blackham House, a building haunted by a terrible past – full of macabre artefacts and ancient studies of the supernatural. But behind closed doors, the Blackhams collect more than relics alone, and Ivy will soon find herself at the centre of a conspiracy spanning generations and a hidden evil waiting to be unleashed.
Can Ivy survive in a world where women must play their part or risk being silenced?
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Additional information
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| File size | 5255 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 411 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | B0BHC1TTN5 |
by Kirsty Tunesi
A page-turner that had me hooked to find out what was going on in that mansion.
I struggled at the beginning to get into the story and connect with Ivy, but once I did I really enjoyed it. There are many interesting characters and lots of secrets. I am looking forward to the next book!
by Kindle Customer
Long winded it may have been but, it was a very good story. Gothic horror at its best! A truly scary tale of Egyptian mysticism, spiritualism and attempts to raise the dead. The author beautifully describes life and the rigid class system stifling Victorian society. A woman’s lot was not a happy one, be they upper or lower class. The book’s heroine was given a stark choice by her father, marry an obnoxious lecherous old man or be carted off to an asylum. Fortunately she did neither and ran away to find her destiny – and what a destiny it turned out to be. This story is well worth reading, just keep going with it.
by Michael Bully
Quite a gripping novel. Probably belongs more to the category of horror than more standard historical fiction. A young lady from a good home in the countryside, with a love of plants and nature, sensitive to voices and visions, embarks on a quest to find a friend of her recently deceased mother,who has vanished after conducting a seance in London.
A harrowing experience at times which builds up to quite a staggering ending. Bleak,brutal and unromantic. Dealing with addiction, suicide, and loss. Probably not for readers who want a sentimental read. But I found the story line unpredictable-apart from the standard Victorian novel device in finding a ‘lost’ relative- and just got hooked.
An array of very different female characters emerge. The plight of young women in prosperous household being placed on the marriage market- with the pitfalls of a lonely loveless marriage or even the asylum as penalties for stepping out of line -is significant. I imagine that Wilkie Collins ‘Women In White’ is an influence. But also the lives of domestics in both rural and urban households are depicted well , with food preparation, cleaning, even shopping being involved, without turning the book into a history lesson. The London fog emerges to set a couple of scenes and enjoyed how the author creates the practical side of how one would have to make their way round the city,with or without fog.
Also worth stating that although a crucial event in the book is a seance, Victorian spiritualism is not a major theme, say compared with Linda Stratmann ‘Mr Scarletti’s Ghost’. ‘The Parlour Game’ takes us to a much darker realm as the Corvidae take on various forms and play their own part in the tale. Certainly more extreme than Lettice Galbraith’s 1893 classic ‘In The Seance Room’.
by D Wood
A promising start that descended into complete nonsense. Sketchy characters and a rushed ending all combined to make this a very disappointing read.
by L L
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel. Its not my normal go to, but I’m so glad I read it. A cross between gothic / horror and history, the plot has many twists and keeps the reader guessing until the very end. The writing really transported you back in time to London in the 1800’s with excellent descriptions- I could imagine the eerie house and the surrounding garden.
I found it a little bit spooky in places it had an eerie atmosphere within the pages which the writer kept throughout the book. I felt compelled to read on to see what would happen next.
Looking forward to the next book in the series what will happen next to Ivy?!
by J. Gilbert
What a book. A plot that just kept building until the very end.
When the ending neared ,the story still had more revelations until the very last page.
Fantastic.
by Starfish57
I am disappointed in this book, which is both over-wordy and over-length. It needed editing thoroughly before publication, given the very odd tendency of the author to misuse words. Such misuse indicates an unfamiliarity with the expressions she deploys, for example, she refers to a gown being “bestowed” with ornaments, the correct term, of course, being “bedecked”. At another point, she has a character asking “what are you inferring to?”, when presumably he is, or should be, asking “to what do you refer?”, or “What are you implying? “. Periodization and idiom also seem to be shaky. The use, for instance, of “obligated” rather than “obliged” is wholly outside of the time and place of the stated setting. The plot is unnecessarily convoluted and does not instil confidence that the writer knows her craft well enough to carry off a decent attempt at a story.
There are also blatant inconsistencies in characterization; for instance, Lord Blackham expresses that a visit to the poorer parts of the city will benefit his wife, and then almost immediately forbids her to go. This happens frequently throughout. Repetition is a regular feature, suggestive of a lack of proper editing and advice.
I’m sorry to have to give so low a rating for this book, but really, the oversights outlined above are pretty unforgivable. The only mystery here is how the book ever got published in its current state.
by Aoife Hennessy
Absolutely loved this and couldn’t put it down. It’s full of Victorian gothic melodrama and really well written. Ivy is a fantastic heroine and I really can’t wait to read the next installment!