Title: Nothing Hidden Ever Stays
Author: H.R. Mason
Publication Date: October 29, 2019
Publisher: Tangled Tree Publishing
Format: NetGalley eARC
A two-hundred-year-old curse. A tangled thread of mental illness. A growing list of Ross family women dying young. The house where it all began, Desolate Ridge, holds all the secrets.
Abandoned at a hospital when she was only three years old, Aubrey Ross grew up as a ward of the state, passed from one foster family to the next. Having endured years of abuse and neglect, she’s become hardened to the world around her.
She’s flirted with depression and anxiety, and she’s haunted by premonitions. When a strange man approaches Aubrey with information about her past, she knows her life is about to change. Inside the envelope is the deed to a house in Ohio—her ancestral home.
When Aubrey arrives in Rossdale, the town named after her family, she immediately experiences situations she cannot explain. She hears voices, sees apparitions, and has vivid visions of tragedies she can scarcely comprehend. Aubrey comes to realize she is reliving events which have happened to those who came before her.
Then she meets Hank Metzger, the town’s sheriff, whose family has an eerie connection to her own. As the secrets of Desolate Ridge are unearthed, Aubrey begins to understand her destiny is tied to Hank’s in a way she cannot escape.
I’m just saying: I will always show up for haunted buildings. Especially ones with cool names like Desolate Ridge.
The fact that there’s a raven on the cover doesn’t hurt, either I have no idea what it is, but if there’s a raven on the front, I’ll pick it up in a heartbeat.
I’ll admit that after coming off of some of the haunted house books I’ve read lately, I had high expectations, and this book just wasn’t quite there. I had originally rated this a three, but after writing my review … I’m knocking it down to a two. I just didn’t end up loving it the way I thought I would.
On the surface, this book sounds perfect for me. Mysterious murders? Check. Haunted houses? Gosh, yes! Old family curse? Pleeeeease. *grabby hands* In the end, it just wasn’t what I expected, and I had such a hard time connecting to the characters and the story.
❧ The book is delightfully dark and atmospheric, with plenty of moments that felt creepy.
That’s one thing I thought Mason did well, is capturing the mood. I wanted a spooky read, and that’s exactly what I got. The most effective parts, for me, were the flashbacks along the family line, from generation to generation, as murders are committed. The detail with which they’re told and the unreliable narrator aspects were things I just easily fell in love with.
❧ The ending was actually quite sweet and enjoyable, which I was not at all expecting.
I guess I’m just not used to happy endings? You mean people can live? And happily? What is this sorcery?! If you’re the sort who likes things to end on a positive note, this book definitely delivers, despite the darker content!
“Don’t fret, dear. Nothing hidden ever stays,” Sharlene said with a smile.
❧ Desolate Ridge certainly lives up to its creepy (but awesome) name, and I got all the proper haunted house vibes from this.
It was brutal and spine-tingling in the right places. Though I’ll admit I didn’t like the ultimate reason behind the curse, I did enjoy the mystery and learning about the house (and with it, the family line) along with Aubrey.
❧ I so appreciate Elizabeth and Stuart, who are clearly awful people, but in the best of ways, and I’m sad that we didn’t actually get to read more about them because this is the romance I want to read.
By which I mean it’s obviously not a romance. It’s an unhappy marriage of two people who have apparently come to a begrudging truce and decided not to murder each other. But is that not infinitely more interesting?! Okay, sure, so she poisoned his coffee and destroyed his kidneys. He never hit her again, did he? No. This is clearly the protagonist we deserve.
She put a little ethylene glycol in his coffee a few weeks after the incident. The sweet-tasting poison caused permanent kidney damage, but in her opinion, it was simply a reminder that her husband should think twice before crossing her again.
❧ The story starts too late for me to actually care about Aubrey and her backstory, because the reader first meets her the moment she learns about her inheritance.
I feel like this is something I should care about, but I just … don’t. There wasn’t enough time to get to know her as a person, and when you’re dealing with a heavy backstory, I need more than just flashbacks. Ya sound like a whiner, Aubrey. Even though I know I should empathize with her, because she’s been through some stuff, I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t given enough reason to care.
❧ There are a lot of tropes that are approached sort of heavy-handedly that I didn’t think worked quite as well as I’d hoped they would. It all added up to a story that wasn’t quite believable, which made it a little less exciting without that “maybe this could happen” sort of feel to it.
What I’m saying is I expected a little more realism, a little less magic. As a fantasy reader, it seems odd to say that, but there it is. The vibe I got from it was very magical realism … until it suddenly wasn’t. More than that, though, some situations just stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and I want to be able to buy into the things that are happening instead of thinking, well, what are the odds that all these improbable things fall into place just so like this?
❧ This romance just didn’t work for me at all. It was too predictable, cliche, and lackluster.
Where’s the chemistry? The longing? The heartbreak? The stabbing him for getting in your way, because no one will keep you from your destiny? The only reason I know these characters like each other is because the book tells me so. I felt absolutely chemistry between them, and it just wasn’t enough time to fall in love. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: knowing someone for a few weeks weeks isn’t long enough to be madly in love and unable to live without each other. This is a hill I’m prepared to die on.
❧ I’m sort of really torn on the use of mental illness here as the main plot point, because on the one hand … the idea of something messing with everyone and driving them mad is terrifying. But on the other, implying that craziness is hereditary and mental illnesses make people prone to (and are to blame for) murdering their loved ones feels icky.
I’m actually just … not going to fully pass judgment on this one. Which is unheard of for me, I know. I just want to put it out there, because if this sort of trope is a pass for you, be aware that that’s what’s going on.
❧ None of the characters felt particularly well developed, so I couldn’t really connect with any of them. Instead of experiencing the story with the characters, it felt more like listening to your friend ramble on for hours about what they did on their vacation.
Which yes, I’m happy for them and I’m sure it was great, but next time, can you just take me along, too? Is that too much to ask?!
Aubrey is too broken. There’s never any details as to why, other than the fact that she was an orphan who had a bad time in the system. Okay, but she’s 25 now in this story, and there is literally no backstory given as to why she has trust issues and doesn’t open up to anyone and refuses to make friends, etc. She’s one big ol’ self-fulfilling prophecy, complaining that she has no friends and is always alone, but then she pushes everyone away, for … reasons?
Rebecca and Hank are too good, also for no good reason, other than the families are connected. That’s it. But see, that’s not enough for me. Everyone has a dark side, whether they show it or not. They’re so friendly and welcoming that it becomes one-dimensional and boring, and it’s really hard for me to like or appreciate those sorts of characters, because I want more nuanced, realistic characters.
❧ The big reveals aren’t really either. They’re hinted at so heavy-handedly (or straight up shown through flashbacks) that the reader already knows them, which takes the surprise out of it.
Add to that the fact that these revelations aren’t even really discussed. It happens, we’re told that Aubrey is horrified or surprised or whatever emotion, and then we move on to the next thing. There’s no real ramification for anything, no actual impact on the character. The story moves along at such a fast clip that it doesn’t even pause long enough to let its reveals sink in and take effect.
❧ The pacing felt off to me. One day we’re doing xyz, and then suddenly it’s two weeks later, but you don’t realize that until two pages into the chapter and you’re confused how everything changed so much overnight.
It felt a little rushed and a little like everything was crammed in to save time, but what ended up happening is I got hopelessly lost in the timeline somewhere, just wandering aimlessly.
I really don’t do haunted houses. My chicken soul quakes at the thought alone 😂Although I will admit that the name of this haunted house sounds pretty freaking cool! Sorry to hear that this didn’t end up being what you expected in the end though. It sounds like the author had a lot of interesting elements in it but just ‘worked it’ too hard and either gave everything away or not enough! Hope your next read is better, Sammie 🙂
I definitely think the idea was great, but you have to really be into these specific tropes to enjoy the execution, I think. It probably doesn’t help that they’re some of my least favorite tropes. xD
I love haunted house stories but this sounds like it had lots of problems. I hope your next read works better for you!
I haven’t really found the perfect haunted house book for me. I want to love them, but I always end up finding problems with them. 🙁 I hear you about the starting the book too late, though. That’s a hard call to make as an author. You don’t want to bore your audience by starting too early, but if you start to late they don’t have a chance to connect to the characters before the action starts.
If you do, let me know, because I’ll want to read it. xD It’s a super hard call to make, and I think you’re never going to get it perfectly right for all your readers, anyway, so it’s a plight that’s doomed from the start.
Oh believe me, if I find the perfect haunted house book I will be shouting it from the rooftops. 😉