When Justine arrives at the house she’s been seeing in her dreams, it quickly becomes the house of her nightmares… Amanda DeWees is one of the few authors I can rely upon to regularly supply me with a good, solid Gothic suspense. Her style is old school and full of the classic tropes, but the stories themselves are always fresh and interesting. I first discovered Amanda through her Clara Blackwood duology, With This Curse and Cursed Once More, which were delightful Gothic romances. I’ve also enjoyed her darker suspense novels like A Dangerous Observer and many of her short stories. It’s been a few years since Amanda came out with a full-length book, but now she’s back with a Victorian Gothic, Darkness at Shadowside, which came out back in March and was well worth the wait.
In her dreams, Justine has wandered the halls of the same grand house for as long as she can remember. After a childhood spent constantly on the move and never forming social attachments due to the vague but dire warnings of her mother, the dream house is the only place that has ever felt like home. So when Justine recognizes an image of the sitting room in a newspaper article about the one-hundredth anniversary of a grisly double muder that took place there, she knows she has to go discover the truth about her connection to the house, even if it goes against everything her dearly departed mother ever taught her. When Justine arrives at Feversham Manor—known colloquially as Shadowside, since it rests in the shadow of a large hill—its inhabitants greet her as if they had seen a ghost. Indeed, the house is haunted by the spirit of a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Justine and the Feversham family is said to be suffering under a curse that has dwindled their fortunes and prevented them from ever having more than one child survive to adulthood in each generation. But Horace and Irene Feversham believe that Justine may just be the key to breaking that curse, and they welcome her into their home. For the first time in her life, Justine experiences luxury and friendship—espeically with the handsome and mysterious coachman Evan Shaw. But as the centenary of the unsolved murders approaches, something isn’t quite right at Shadowside. By night the family ghost appears to Justine, dropping clues about what really happened on that fateful evening. And by day, multiple attempts are made on Justine’s life by an unseen member of the household. Can Justine survive long enough to uncover the secret that ties her to this house and the century-old murder mystery?
Darkness at Shadowside is a fun spin on the haunted house genre. There is an odd parallel between Justine, who is being haunted by the house (through her dreams), and the house, which is being haunted by Justine’s ghostly doppelganger. When Justine and Shadowside Manor are finally brought together, the sins of one hundred years ago return to the surface and find eerie parallels in the present day. The ghost is that of Jade Feversham, who was found dead along with her mother after what seems to have been a robbery gone wrong while the lord of the house was away on business. Although the Fevershams associate the ghost of Jade with their family curse, Justine experiences her mostly as a helpful—if at times disconcerting—spirit. To others, the ghost is merely a silent reminder of a past tragedy; Justine is the only one with whom she communicates, speaking directly into her mind and showing her flashes of memory. Jade’s spirit is here on unfinished business: getting justice for herself and her mother, but she is also invested in Justine’s wellbeing.
More than just a haunting, Jade is also Justine’s doppelganger, eerily similar to her in appearance—to the extent that Justine is mistaken for the ghost when she first arrives at the manor. In a classic Gothic scene, Justine uncovers an old portrait of Jade, which clearly establishes the ghost’s identity and their uncanny family resemblance. When characters in Gothic literature appear identical to a portrait of an ancestor, it usually indicates similarities beyond their physical appearance. Justine is inextricably tied to Jade and the events of one hundred years ago—she is destined to either repeat the same fate or reveal the buried truth, righting the wrongs of the past.
If you like tales of intrepid Gothic heroines investigating ancient sins in their ancestral homes while under constant threat from a mysterious enemy, then Darkness at Shadowside is everything you’re looking for. The paperback is only available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but you can get the ebook and support The Gothic Library in the process through this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!