The Darkling
Bride
by Laura Andersen
As a teen, I
didn’t have a lot of choice in the books I choose to read. There was no Young Adult or Teen genre. If you were a book lover, you went from
juvenile choices to adult. My choices
were mystery writers. As an avid reader
herself, my mother handed me Mary Roberts Rinehart. Then I discovered Victoria Holt, Phyllis
Whitney, and Mary Stewart. I was in
heaven. Guess what? I’m in heaven again! Laura Andersen has brought the haunting,
misty vistas of the gothic tale into the 21st century. She blends the modern within her tale of The
Darkling Bride.
Deeprath
Castle, nestled close to the Wicklow Mountains, has been home to generations of
Gallaghers. Caaragh Ryan is familiar
with Deeprath’s dark history and she jumps at the chance to inventory the thousands
of volumes of the castle’s library. She
is hoping to figure out the mysterious events that led Evan Chase, a popular
author of his time, to search out the haunting story of the Darkling Bride only
to fall in love with the daughter of the castle. The sadness that evolved into the suicide of
his wife and ended with his abandonment of Deeprath, leaving his infant son in
the care of the boy’s grandfather, never to write again. Carragh wasn’t counting on the assistance of
the current Viscount, the troubled but kind Aidan, helping her to understand
his family and fill her with tales of his home and Ireland.
Andersen’s Darkling
Bride is filled with all the elements that make a great Irish gothic tale. Possible ghosts, fairies, changelings, beautiful
mysterious women and handsome troubled men.
It has strong, formidable women who strongly believe in tradition and maintaining
an equally strong façade. Her vivid
descriptions of the Irish countryside make you grab a wrap when the winds blow
and rain pounds the battlements. Caaragh
is a strong young woman who embraces who she is but keeps her past to
herself. Andersen concludes her story
nicely and finishes off with a realistic feel.
She is a contemporary author that can pickup the baton of those noted
authors who have given us good gothic fiction.
I
wish to thank the generosity of the publisher and NetGalley for providing an
Advanced Reader’s Copy for my honest review.
PUB: Ballantine Books/Random House Pub.
PUB DATE:
March 6, 2018
ISBN: 9780425286432
Genre: General Fiction/Gothic Mystery
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