Moody Boxfan Books, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-7334803-8-3
Fantasy Romance, 2020
I can’t get over how pretty the cover of Joshua Ian’s The Ghost of Hillcomb Hall is. Had this been a dead tree book, I’d keep it just to look at the cover now and then, even if the story inside were putrid.
Fortunately, the story is anything but that. It’s nowhere as pretty as the cover though, alas.
It’s 1910, and landscape artist Jonas Laurence arrives during a dark and stormy night at Hillcomb Hall. His firm had been hired to make the gardens of that place prettier, so here he is. This gig is also a nice way to distract himself from a recent relationship breakup that leaves him currently without, shall we say, a traveling companion and assistant to tend to his needs.
Of course, as such stories always tend to be, there is a hot footman that is flirty and even handsy, how nice.
“I only meant,” he said, “that it must have been an easier place for a young gentleman like yourself to find amusement.”
Cecil caught his eyes, his look speaking his desire plainly.
“I make do, sir.”
Jonas cocked his head and smiled. “Of that, I am sure, my boy. Most sure.”
Oh my, who would’ve thought one can use the English language to create such a sexually charged moment in just a few lines, while still having the characters sound all prim and proper? Then again, is it even proper to ask the footman for a shag ten minutes into their acquaintance?
Unfortunately for Jonas, this is also a Gothic story, what with the word “ghost” in the title being a dead giveaway, and the three strange ladies of the manor may turn out to be the most normal part of his stay in Hillcomb Hall…
Unfortunately for me, the story suffers from a rushed and uneven pacing, culminating in an unintentional hilarious and even absurd late third or so that sees Jonah and the… ghost or whatever it is yelling and screaming at one another while exposition points start hitting me in the head like I’d walked under an exploding sewage pipe.
The author then tries to pass the whole thing as something completely different from what the story has been building up up to that point. Given the length of the story and the way the story only rushes to drop exposition points with all the subtlety of an elephant stampede so late in the story, it feels like a giant ass pull—a twist that doesn’t work at all.
The saddest part of the whole thing is that the author could have just let the story be with minimal twists, because things start out pretty well. No, let’s derail the budding romance as well as everything else, and for what? I’m still not sure why the last few pages have to be the way they are, actually.
Perhaps things would have worked better had this been a much longer story for the twists and turns to be integrated more smoothly. As it is, this one is a well written, atmospheric Gothic tale with a hint of a romance until the author decides to just sweep everything off the table, so to speak, for some last minute abrupt twists and turns that leave me scratching my head.
