Ratings7
Average rating3.9
Viola Hatherley was a writer of ghost stories in the 1890s whose work lies forgotten until her great-grandson, as a young boy in Mawson, Australia, learns how to open the secret drawer in his mother's room. There he finds a manuscript, and from the moment his mother catches him in the act, Gerard Freeman's life is irrevocably changed. What is the invisible, ever-present threat from which his mother strives so obsessively to protect him? And why should stories written a century ago entwine themselves ever more closely around events in his own life?
Reviews with the most likes.
I rated this “amazing,” even though I think the end is kind of a mess, just because everything leading up to that is so entrancing. Plus, there are a few nested short stories that are absolutely dynamite.
I'm constantly on the lookout for more books in this vein. I'd say similar novels include The Thirteenth Tale and The Historian. I just love the combination of gothic styling, investigation of murky family secrets, ghost stories and bibliophile protagonists.