A Gothic Novel I Loved: Small Angels

Summary: This wasn’t obviously my kind of book, but I found suspense thrilling and enjoyed all of the characters.

I picked this book as my Book of the Month read and immediately regretted it. It’s primarily shelved as horror on goodreads, which is not my thing. Fortunately, I think the ‘gothic’ label this book also gets is more apt and had a ghost-story suspense that I enjoyed very much. It’s the story of Chloe, a woman who plans her wedding for a small church near the creepy woods in her fiancé’s hometown. It’s also Kate’s story, as she returns for her brother’s wedding and has to face the forgotten terror she encountered in the woods. And it’s Lucia’s story, the misfit child of a family whose job it is to placate the woods, which have recently reawakened.

The author gets the atmosphere just right in this novel. It’s creepy, suspenseful, and haunting. The first few chapters, I didn’t quite connect to the story. There’s some world building and a feel that the events being described happened in the past. This turned out to be a great foundation for the rest of the book though. Once things start happening, there’s a feeling of impending disaster that made this one of the first books in awhile that I just couldn’t put down.

The characters’ relationships with each other were also well developed. Their care for one another helped me feel deeply invested in what happened to them. I was dubious that the ending of this story could live up to the suspense being created, but I’m happy to report that this is yet another way in which this book pleasantly surprised me. The ending was completely satisfying without being overly neat or predictable. I was not sure this book was for me, but I was wrong – I loved spending time in the world of this book!

The post A Gothic Novel I Loved: Small Angels appeared first on Doing Dewey.