Random House, August 9, 2016.
Three Stars
After the death of her father, twenty-something Arden
inherits her ancestral home of Arrowood, an ornate historical house on the
Mississippi River in Iowa. Located in the small town of Keokuk, Arden’s
presence is instantly noticed by the community that knew her has a child – her family
left town after the disappearance of Arden’s twin sisters. The girls, under two
years old, vanished on a sunny, peaceful afternoon, making the crime all the
more shocking. As the older sister, Arden still carries the guilt of losing the
twin girls.
Arden inherits Arrowood at a time when she is
floundering in her academic career due to a failed relationship with her
professor. She escapes to her childhood home, but she is also faced with the
obligation of exposing the family mystery – and with generations of untimely
deaths in the house, it is filled with ghosts, real and imagined. An eerie, menacing
atmosphere invades Arrowood with its damp, musty darkness, yet it could have
been much darker with more build up to the reveal.
While Arden is a strong, convincing character, many
of the minor characters were unbelievable. The overall pacing of the story is
inconsistent, with a slow loss of focus in the middle and an ending that felt
too rushed. The setting of Keokuk, Iowa is strong – especially McHugh’s descriptions
of a once proud and beautiful town falling into the depression of a failing
economy. The focus on historical architecture and haunted old homes is well
done and steeped in nostalgia.
Although this is yet another novel about missing
girls, I wouldn’t call it a thriller. It is somewhat psychological, but the
pace is slow and almost meditative. It is more of a literary mystery – a
character study of Arden’s own psychological issues, as seen through the lens
of the childhood tragedy of her sisters. It is a novel about the stories we
tell ourselves, about ourselves, and
the ways in which memories are manipulated. The fate of the missing girls isn’t
completely shocking – following heavy foreshadowing – but it is still an
entertaining story.
I received this novel from Random House and NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.
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