Snag Your Copy The Whispering House Scripted By Elizabeth Brooks Readily Available As Interactive EBook

tale has all the hallmarks of a chilling gothic: a vulnerable woman, a brooding love interest, a haunting setting, and an edge of mystery.
I was intrigued from the beginning, While I did find the story gorgeously written, the plot itself was quite predictable and the character of Freya is painfully and nonsensically naive.
That said, there was a dark, poetic eeriness to the telling that I found compelling, Probably.starssomewhere between liked and really liked,

A creepy gothic! My favorite!

The narrator of this

tale, Freya, is fragile and dreamy.
She's also suffering from PTSD though I don't think she knows it, She's often passive, usually lost in her own head, and frankly, a bit weird, For example, in chapter one, she walks into a house that isn't hers, wanders around a bit, then LIES DOWN ON THE FLOOR and GOES TO SLEEP! This sort of bizarre behavior might be out of place in any other genre, but gothic heroines get a pass.


There is a real darkness herenot from the Whispering House though it does stand as a brooding, menacing figure in this book, but from the people Freya meets.
I feared for her quite a bit,

No spoilers, but I think a few of the plot elements were a bit too contrived.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this sinister gothic tale,

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley, Thanks for the opportunity to read and review I appreciate it!
Boring and flat with unlikable characters.
Im not really sure why I finished it, Seriously creepy thriller, with a wonderful underlying theme of love and loss, You can take the story in so many ways a general thriller, a love story, a story of abuse, a tragedy, or all of these options!
I sacrificed sleep to keep reading this which doesn't happen much at times I completely forgot I was turning pages always the sign of a great read.
Very enjoyable, easy to read and with a horrible character that I couldn't help hating, Can't wait to read the author's other book! Uhhh,
I think I'm done with gothic suspense, they are never as eerie or atmospheric as they should be.


Freya is a dumb, clueless turd who I wanted to violently shake,
Cory is a whining, weak, manipulative pos turd who I wanted to stab,
Freya's dad is an annoying, unhelpful turd who I wanted to leave stranded in a parking lot.


I did enjoy a bit of this, briefly, But the ending was like, uhhm, I dunno nothing happened I was going to give thisbut the ending makes this a complete waste of time.
Just, nothing. No pay off. Theres no doubt that in Byrne Hall the author has created another mysterious location for her novel, Viewed for the first time from its gardens, as Freya does, or glimpsed from afar, it seems picture perfect.
“There it was there was Byrne Hall, Impossible to mistake the graceful white house with its pillared porch, and the tiered garden tumbling down through the trees like a wide, green river.
” However, delve deeper and its elegant frontage is revealed as merely a facade the rest of the house is in various stages of disuse and decay, “as godforsaken as Sleeping Beautys castle”.
  This is something of a metaphor for the characters who inhabit it Diana Byrne and her son, Cory.


Once doyenne of the art world, Diana is now ailing and physically frail, reliant on Cory, the son she dotes on, to look after her.
However, through the occasional insights into her thoughts, the reader senses she possesses an inner steel and a strong will.
In a curious and rather unsettling way, the house seems to inhabit her as much as she inhabits it.
“She Diana had become the whispering voice of the house, No, more than that, she had become its mind and soul, ”

Even Freya begins to think of Byrne Hall as in some sense having a life of its own.
“We didnt get silences like this back home, It was a silence with character and colour it was the wakeful mind of Byrne Hall, brimful of history and intent.
” This air of unreality, along with her desire to find out more about the circumstances of her sisters death, goes some way to explaining why Freya finds herself drawn into a relationship with Cory.
I confess I struggled to see the attraction Cory held for Freya, Convinced he possesses as yet unrecognised artistic talent, his behaviour is increasingly manipulative and controlling, However, having always felt as if she was in her sisters shadow, Freya finds Corys adoration difficult to resist.
In addition, Byrne Hall seems to offer her the prospect of a new and more fulfilling life,

As Freya uncovers more connections between Byrne Hall and her sisters death, picking up fragments here and there, she observes “It was like holding a couple of jigsaw pieces in my palm, knowing there was a whole picture to be made, if only I could find the rest.
” You may think you know exactly where the story is going but, like me, you could be wrong.
Never underestimate the lengths to which people will go to preserve the things they treasure,

With its atmospheric setting and gothic elements yes, there is even an attic, The Whispering House combines suspenseful mystery with an absorbing story of delusion and obsession.
DNF. This was one of those books that sounded great in the pitch but left wanting in the presentation.
The story never really went anywhere, which is probably because it didn't start anywhere, A woman goes to a wedding right next to where her sister killed herself, The house is off limits but she takes her drunk self into it anyway, thinks she sees her sister's picture, and then passes out.
So of course she decides she needs to bother these people, She takes off work, packs a bag, and sets off, Passing signs saying everything but "Go AWAY!" she approaches the house to find a man and his mother with a very unhealthy codependency.
So, of course she starts having sex with the guy and just never leaves, I think the British accent was supposed to make this charming but it was just another gaslighting misadventure following what should have been a one night stand.
There was some stuff about the house talking to the mom that was supposed to make it creepy, but it wasn't.
The change between sisters' stories was often confusing and I found myself wondering who we were talking about again.
The narration was bland. Many Thanks to Net Galley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and the author for a chance to read and review this book.


TheWhisperingHouse NetGalley

Disturbing and creepy, The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks is a crafty gothic thriller.

When Freya first spies upon Byrne Hall while attending a cousins wedding, it captures her imagination like nothing else.
The gardens, the sea below the cliffs and all the trees surrounding the house makes it a very enchanted place which she longs to explore although, it is the same cliffs where her sister Stellas body was found.
yrs into Stellas suicide, Freya and her art critic father are yet to come to terms with the loss and are still grieving, unable to talk openly about the whirlwind that was Stella.


Few drinks and wobbly feet carry her trespassing into the house wherein she sees a mosaic painting of Stella.
Despite it not being a good likeness, Freya takes it upon herself to a journey to Byrne Hall, trying to understand her sisters final moments.


A chance meeting with Cory in the town, and a rude encounter with his mother Diana in Byrne Hall and pathetic weather, gives her a chance to remain inside the house.
Inch by inch, things begin to change as Freya believes in her love and the artistic capabilities of Cory and Byrne Hall begins to dominate her every thought.


The Whispering House, I would say has no mystery, coz there is only one direction where the story can lead to and it is in all fairness guessable.
But the author succeeds in creating a story that raises the goosebumps with Dianas sickness and her rudeness, the ghostly house, the eerie and echoing rooms that are all empty, and then a nailbiting end to a fever pitch suspense of how everything gets resolved.
This is where Elizabeth Brooks has created a compelling narrative in making us understand a dark tale of obsession and vulnerabilities perfectly building a gothic feel to the whole endeavor.


I really wanted a little more depth to the character of Stella as it felt half formed even though there are parts in her POV.
The lack of fireworks in the first part of the story does tend to slow down the pace but it is quite an absorbing read.

Recommended to fans of gothic fiction!
This was one sucktacular gothic, It starts off with promise hence the two, but then it just meandered off into a pointless ending.


At the beginning of the novel, we have:
a heroine with a tragic past sister's mysterious death
a foreboding and mysterious house in an isolated locationwith a bonus mystery portrait of the deceased sister!
a brooding artist love interest who sweeps Freya off her feet almost immediately
a secondary character with secrets Diana, the artist's ill mother who seems to know something she isn't telling

As Freya finds herself swept into Byrne Hall and all of its mysteries, I found myself wondering how this house and these people would be tied to the mystery of her sister's death.
However, the promise of the initial chapters never gets realized,

For all that parts of this story are told from Freya's point of view, she's mostly a bland nothing of a character.
Things just keep happening to her, and we see little agency on her part, little introspection and indeed little insight into why she just keeps right on accepting the increasingly bizarre circumstances in which she is living.
While the other characters in this book actually do things from time to time, they also feel somewhat flat.
As a result, what starts off as brooding and interesting just turns dull and seemingly pointless,

I had read reviews that described this book as a brilliant character study, but frankly, there weren't many layers to these characters for one to observe.
In addition, most of the plot twists are signaled in such obvious fashion that the reader figures out what will happen long before it actually does.


I read this book all the way to the end, hoping that it would get better.
Spoiler: It doesn't.

CW: Discussion of selfharm and suicide, domestic abuse I really wanted to like this book.
The premise sounded interesting and based on the little Id heard about the book, I was anticipating an atmospheric pageturner with serious gothic vibes.
Actually, for the firstpages or so, I felt like this was the case, as the author did a pretty good job of setting the scene and creating intrigue around the house at the center of the story, Bryne Hall.
Unfortunately it didnt last for me, the story started to unravel early on, when the main character Freya Lyell returns to Bryne Hall again after her cousins wedding and nonsensically inserts herself in the lives of Cory and Diana Bryne.
Technically, there wasnt really a plot to speak of, as nothing much happens but what annoyed me was that the little bit of plot that did happen was farfetched and unrealistic.
This was one of those stories where you pretty much have to suspend disbelief the entire time youre reading, otherwise its hard to get through.


Normally, Im okay with lack of plot if the character development is good and Im able to connect with the characters in some way.
Sorry to say, this wasnt the case here not only was every single character in this story very unlikable, they also felt like stereotypicallydrawn caricatures going through the motions.
The main protagonist, Freya, especially frustrated me to no end, One of the things I absolutely cant stand in books are grown up, adult characters who act like petulant children, as well as female characters who are portrayed stereotypically i.
e. : weak, hysterical, naive, irrational, emotional, wushuwashy, etc, unfortunately for me, Freya was both of these and worse, I hated how pretty much every single thing Freya did, every decision she made, was done in a way that made no sense whatsoever.
From the get go, Freya is portrayed as naive and foolish, which I guess is the authors way of perhaps justifying why she makes one reckless decision after another throughout the entire story.
Having said all that though, my biggest pet peeve is when the female character knows that doing certain things or going down certain paths is selfdestructive and/or will for sure result in negative consequences either for herself or for others oftentimes the character actually tells us so via her wn inner dialogue, yet she still insists on going forward with the decision then, when others usually a friend or family member try to warn her or talk sense into her, she either goes ballistic and pushes the person away or she does the denial thing by playing dumb and pretending nothing is wrong.
And thats just Freya as if one annoying character wasnt enough, the author had to include an entire cast of them! Freyas father Roger was a jerk, her sister Stella was reckless, Cory Bryne was a delusional psychopath and his mother was a sinister witch the only decent person in the story was Tom, but even he turned out to be annoying with his wishy washy personality.


Overall, I would have to say that this was a disappointing and frustrating read for me.
The writing for the most part was decent, though I felt like the “gothic” vibe and the mystery piece totally didnt work if this was supposed to be a psychological suspense novel, it completely failed in that aspect, as the main plot points were predictable I pretty much figured things out already within the first few pages and the intrigue of the “house” at the center of the story was overshadowed by the loathsomeness of its occupants.
In the end, I also felt the story dragged out for way too long, though I think that was because, at that point, I couldnt bring myself to care anymore.
While Im not one to DNF a book once Ive started reading, I do believe that, based on sheer annoyance level alone, this one wouldve been an exception the only reason I didnt is due to this being a book club read, which made me determined to push through it.
With that said, the reviews for this one seem to be all over the place, so I would say read both the positive and negative reviews to get a more balanced perspective before deciding whether to pick this one up.

.