I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Miramont's Ghost by Elizabeth Hall on February 1, 2015
Genres: Paranormal, Thriller
Pages: 334
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Adrienne Beauvier is clairvoyant. Ever since she was able to speak, she would share stories of her visions with her grandfather and her nursemaid. Unfortunately, not many others were so accommodating and treated her gift like a disease, hoping to silence the secrets she might uncover.
Her most formidable enemy was her Aunt Marie. So determined to keep her niece silent, Marie takes Adrienne from her home in France to Miramont Castle in America. There, Adrienne is a prisoner. Her own family believing she is dead, she is presented as a servant with a propensity to tell wild stories. Rather than silencing her visions, however, the setting seems to bring them on with more strength and clarity. The secrets they unleash are far darker and more traumatic than she could have ever imagined. She struggles with the desire to know the truth with the determination to be freed of her aunt's imprisonment.
Always intrigued with a premise of a mysterious, gothic setting, I was delighted when given the opportunity to participate in the tour for this book. Unfortunately, that delight quickly wavered.
While the characters and storyline did capture my attention initially, it wasn’t sustained. The jacket copy tells of a dark and mysterious castle riddled with secrets, yet a large part of this novel takes place in France. It isn’t until after over 200 pages that Adrienne is whisked away by her aunt to America. Up until this point, I was quite enamored by the storyline. While the flow of the novel lacked flow, I was still engrossed with the “big secret” that Adrienne was apparently going to reveal. So I waited.
As the novel’s setting shifts to America halfway through, the book takes on a completely different identity. Honestly, it’s as if two completely different books were weaved together into one, unsuccessfully. Suddenly, I lost all interest and respect in the novel. As a fan of horror and thrillers, I can handle the dark stuff if it is appropriate and handled well. Yet, in this case, the first half of the novel is quite…chaste…and suddenly in the second half the reader is first dealt with a graphic scene involving rape/incest followed by a flashback to a sexual encounter. Now, I’m no prude. If appropriate, I can read and handle most anything. I was warned about these scenes in advance, but for the reader going in completely unprepared, it would be quite a shock.
So, at this point, I simply lost interest in the book and could not finish. I stopped less than 100 pages from the end, certain there would be nothing that could redeem this novel enough to regain my interest. Had it continued the way of the first half, even with the uneven storyline lacking any cohesiveness….I could have gotten over it and completed the novel. Yet to me, the graphic scenes that were added were completely unnecessary and added nothing to the novel. They just didn’t make sense, instead thrown in to create some odd and twisted explanation for the family’s dark secret.
So, obviously, I can’t really recommend this title based on my own personal experience. All that said, I could be wrong.
Any other readers have a different experience in reading this title? I’d love to hear your feedback! Interested in reading what others thought of this title? Check out the official TLC Book Tours tour page.
