In the 1950s, Sonia, Katie, Roberta, and CiCi are 15-years-old roommates at an all-girls boarding school, Idlewild, which has a poor reputation and it’s very own home-grown ghost, Mary Hand. After a trip to visit her elderly and distant relatives, Sonia — a Holocaust survivor — never returns, and her best friends fear the worst.
In 2014, Fiona, a journalist, is writing a story about the mysterious benefactor who is planning on fixing and reopening Idlewild. She’s especially invested in her reporting because her own sister was found murdered on the grounds of the abandoned school. And now another body is found in the well during construction.
I’m not usually a big fan of ghost stories… my imagination tends to run wild, and then I can’t sleep. But, in terms of ghosts and intensity, this one wasn’t in your face scary, which I appreciated. And, no ghosts can really be as scary as what actually happened to all of the women in this story.
I liked how the author mixed the past and the present day and meshed those stories. When I heard that this overlapped with the Holocaust, I rolled my eyes, but I thought that the author was very respectful in her treatment of it and the aftermath.
I also liked how Mary Hand tied in as the ghost who shows you your worst fear when you encounter her, especially since she actually died of what was probably her own worst fear. I did think that it was especially interesting that the women who encountered Mary Hand were all affected by her, but at the same time, they each overcame what she showed them, while Fiona’s sister’s murderer is caught precisely because they are overcome by whatever Mary Hand showed them.
As autumn starts and Halloween approaches, this was a great Gothic novel to help get you in the mood for the season.