Ugh! This was a book that I was well on the way to giving a 9 or more out of 10, and then the last few chapters pretty much ruined it. The book’s still good, but it had so much potential to be a really great thriller, all spoiled by just some crazy resolutions. I don’t know what the author was thinking!
About the book
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
~ Synopsis from goodreads
My Review
The premise of this book is great. It’s about a woman suspected of a crime who goes to care for an elderly paralyzed lady who was suspected of killing her entire family years ago. The book has elements of the real-life Lizzie Borden case. There is a good dose of Gothic horror and creepiness, everything I like in a book.
The entire atmosphere is creepy. Our protagonist gets thrown into this house where it feels like everyone has a secret, and she is the only one not in on it. She has no clue who to trust. The first two-thirds of the book is amazingly creepy, so creepy that I started feeling nervous reading it when I was alone at home.
Sadly, everything goes to pieces in the last 80 pages. It felt like twist after twist after twist after twist, finally ending up with the final twist that made absolutely no sense at all. All the mystery and suspense in the first half of the book devolves into a melodramatic showdown with just too many coincidences and twists.
There was also one glaring plot hole that I can’t believe was missed by the editors. In fact, it was so glaring I thought it was a clue to something not adding up. But no, it’s just a miss by the author.
Still, I generally enjoyed this book. The suspense was extremely well-built and I never guessed the killer till the end, so that was great.
The book would just have fared a little better if the last twist had been left out. It didn’t make sense and the tacked on happily ever after was just wrong for the type of book it was.
