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Lorna and Jon are in rural Cornwall checking out possible venues for their wedding. Their last stop is the rundown and slightly creepy Pencraw Hall, known locally as Black Rabbit Hall. Although Jon has wanted to skip it altogether, Lorna feels called to it in some way, and when she walks through its doors she knows it is where she is meant to have her wedding. Time is short, though, so she must leave before fully investigating the option and the ancient owner of the Hall invites her to come back and stay overnight in an attempt to get her business. Jon is both unable and unwilling to join her, so when she returns it is alone.
Lorna knows there is some connection between herself and Black Rabbit Hall, as she vaguely remembers visiting the area when she was quite young. As she feels the oppressive past weighing upon her, the reader is more aware of what is included in that past. The book moves between contemporary sections during which Lorna attempts to discover what happened at Black Rabbit Hall in the late 1960s and why the Hall has such a compelling draw for her and sections told from the perspective of Amber, a teenager who lived through the dark events of 1968 and 1969. In the end, the layers of deception and cruelty are peeled away and both Lorna and reader understand how the decades old events connect to Lorna's own past.
The book is, as both its title and cover suggest, a gothic. There is a brooding, malevolent sense throughout that draws the reader in. Both Amber and Lorna are very sympathetic characters, and we want to see good things happen for them although the tone of the book suggests that it will turn out otherwise. The atmosphere is thick and heavy, as expected, and it seems to drown the innocents while supporting those who wish them harm. If a little slow to get started, the book picks up speed midway through and from that point onward is difficult to put down. Tension builds; layers of deception are built during Amber's sections and slowly removed during Lorna's sections. In the end, the complicated story comes together in a surprising manner as the puzzle pieces just seem to fall into place.
This is a compelling book, with a well-developed atmosphere, characters who feel very real regardless of whether they are from the 60s or the present, highly descriptive writing about location, romantic tension, and an interesting family history to unravel. The initial prologue and final epilogue are really the only weaknesses. The former is not needed to set the stage and does nothing other than to pull the reader out of the story toward the end of the book as the author uses the same words to remind us of that start. And the epilogue actually detracts from the book as it provides no new information and takes the focus away from the finely tuned ending of the book that has just occurred. My suggestion would be to skip both and allow yourself to follow Lorna across the threshold of Black Rabbit Hall. This is Chase's fiction debut, so we can hope that there will be other doors to pass through in the future.
§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, February 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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