A Madness Unmade

Laurel Rumbroom is the last of her line after her father's untimely demise. She is also the sole living resident of the Underhallow, a sanctuary for ghosts not quite ready to fully shuffle off this mortal coil, and its last Guardian. The ghosts there tend to her needs and do their best to take care of her, and in return, she tries to take care of them. But deliveries of dead moths are telling her something isn't quite right. With her questionable mind and unwillingness to leave the grounds of Underhallow, what can she do to unravel the mystery and preserve the Underhallow?

Erin Larson-Burnett has given us an eerily whimsical world, populated with ghosts who can be kind, pompous, shy, rude, and frightening. Lauren is an unreliable narrator, by turns clear as a bell and lost in the fog of her own mind. She's struggling to take in the education Master Godwin tries to impress upon her, but she just can't quite hang onto the knowledge. I wanted to reach into the pages and hug her.

The author covers a lot in this book: mental health, political machinations, intrigue, found family, coming into one's own. It's all beautifully done, and I am so glad there's more to come in the second book of the duology! I can hardly wait to get my hands on the second one.