3.5* ( )

1925, Louisa Drew married for a second time and pregnant. She accepts a commission to photograph Clewer Hall as the family are moving to India. The household thirty years ago held a seance and before they leave they are going to recreate the seance.

This read was quite enjoyable. The story does have everything that I would expect. A gothic house with secrets and its ghosts.

The story had it's moments and along the way at times was creepy and atmospheric. The story unfolds nicely and all makes sense when everything is revealed. The book didn't wow me but I did enjoy the story. Any book that has a creepy house and family secrets is always one for me. ( )

I love historical fiction and I find I am always most interested in Victorian times onwards so The Quickening, set in 1925 but with a toe in the late 1800s, appealed to me. Its very gothic feel just heightened my anticipation and enjoyment.

Louisa Drew is a photographer and pregnant. She's called upon to go from London to Brighton to photograph items at Clewer Hall for an auction. From the minute she is given the assignment she knows something isn't right about the hall and she later learns that a well-known séance took place there in 1896. Why was she specifically requested to take the photographs? Why is she so uncomfortable at the hall? And why are the family recreating the séance all these years later?

Well, to learn all that you will have to read the book, but I found this a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing read. I loved Louisa. She's well ahead of her time, a woman not only working whilst married but also whilst pregnant. She's very independent and pretty feisty. She's already suffered the worst that can happen to her so she's forging ahead with her life as best she can. I did often wonder why she was sticking her nose into matters at the hall, but her investigative skills could put Miss Marple to shame and she needed to know why she was there.

Rhiannon Ward has done an excellent job with this story. It's creepy and sinister, with a strong sense of the unexplained, and that sense of never knowing if any of it could in fact be explained away or if it was the spirit world at work. I loved the feel of the faded hall as the backdrop. Clewer Hall is a character in its own right, with its few remaining servants providing a hint of its glory days. Ward has created atmosphere in spades with dark corners, shadows and mysterious sightings.

This is a mystery novel but it felt like more than that for me. Louisa unearths secrets left, right and centre, but it felt more like a story of grief, of life after the First World War, of learning to make do with what is left. Ward beautifully portrays what it's like to be left behind. It's a fabulous read. ( )

"Although we’d left the overhanging shrubbery behind us, the
day was still dark, and I saw, as in the photo, part of the house was in shadow. I looked up to see what was throwing its shade onto the Hall but saw only the watery sun hanging low in the sky, straining to lighten the day. I could see nothing which would explain the outline darkening the eastern wing which cast such a gloomy pall."

Exciting, is it not? Not!
No need to bore your soul with a synopsis. The blurb is there. But I can tell you that, for me, this was a failure. And then some.

Endless, pointless discussions over photos, pregnancy, and maids. I got it the first time, repetition doesn't help.

The dialogue was wooden, and there were numerous grammatical mistakes. "Her" instead of "here" many, many times. "Wer" instead of "were", the editor must loath the letter "e"...The questions were oddly formed, as if they were too "American" for lack of a better definition, and it bothered me.

Louisa "winced" and "frowned" too many times...Lily "flinched", everyone's faces are "flushed". Louisa's self-pity over her second husband was exhausting.

The fact that the heroine learns facts while eavesdropping is lazy and naive.

Loaded with every cliche imaginable.

A character utters the "come thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell". And Louisa doesn't recognize the quote. So much for her endless education. Leave Macbeth alone, dear "writer".

The inclusion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a gimmick and a presumptuous choice on the part of the writer.If you don't have the chops to meddle with an actual literary legend, leave him/her alone. Honestly!

And in the end, I was tired.I was exhausted and I didn't care. To mention this drivel next to The Silent Companions and The Familiars is pathetic.

Many thanks to Orion Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )