Caitlin, a rich heiress and owner of a truly extravagant renovated
mansion seems to have it all. Sadly, she also has a cheating husband.
Caitlin’s rage at his betrayal invokes an old power lying
beneath the house – a lethal power that seizes on her revenge for its own
deadly purpose
It’s down to Nova, the daughter of Caitlin’s
groundskeeper and Blake, her estranged best friends, to get to the bottom of
the mystery and find out what it is she has invoked.
The atmosphere of the book is excellent. This is a horror
novel and it brings the creepy – and a whole lot of mystery. There is a lot of
tension in the book from almost the beginning and there is no scrimping on the
horror. A lot of this comes from the unknown – because the Vines quickly become
more and more complicated than simple angry, vengeance seeking plants which
continues to add to the tension and the unknown. Every time I thought I knew
how this worked, every time I thought that I would know who was at risk or not
the rules changed, we had some more revealed and the threat became more
universal again. The ground kept shifting, the mystery kept growing, the
creepiness was always maintained
The language also hit the right balance. It was elaborate
and gothic and descriptive – juuuuust edging towards being overly descriptive
and overly flowery – but then pulling back from the edge. It held on the cusp
of being just a bit too much for most of the book, instead adding really nicely
to the atmosphere of it.
However, elaborate language, hefty description coupled
with a shifting deep mystery meant there were times when I was lost and trying
to figure out where we were going, what was happening and why because
everything just kind of stumbled into confusion for a bit in the middle and
towards the end.
It also has a revenge plot and raises the issue of both
what will you sacrifice for revenge and what revenge makes you, as a person. It’s
interesting and knotty
I was really pleasantly surprised by how this book
presented the setting – and I don’t mean the magic. This book is set in a very
wealthy, restored plantation house outside of Louisiana, with some delving into
the past. A lot of books set in this time and place have a… overly romanticised
view of the setting. I’ve seen far too many happy-Black-slaves and devoted
Black servants just falling over themselves to serve the rich White family they
adore so.
