At the start of the story we are introduced to Morgan, a middle aged woman, and her father who has just been released from prison. We learn that Morgan’s father was just released from prison after spending many years there wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. Morgan decides its best for the pair to start a new chapter of their life in a small coastal town, it is decided that they will move into a “folly” in exchange for the upkeep of the building. That’s all I want to share as far as a summary because I did not read the summary before reading this book, I saw it at my library, saw Gemma Amor’s name, and decided to pick it up. I would recommend not reading the synopsis, I read the synopsis after finishing the book and honestly it gives some things away that probably is best for readers to discover on their own.

The book is well paced with Amor’s crisp prose which made it easy to get into the story pretty quickly. The atmosphere and isolated setting will appeal to readers who are fans of gothic style stories. There were a couple of themes explored in the story; grief, father/daughter relationships, residual effects of the pandemic, and adjusting to life after being released from an institution. I think each one was explored realistically and with heart. There were also some genuinely creepy moments that reminded me a lot of some of the scenes from the movie “Men”, which was very well done and really started to creep me out and kept me on the edge of my seat.

Unfortunately I think in the end the story took a really weird turn, which I typically don’t mind, but I just am not really sure I understand what happened. I also was very fascinated by Morgan’s character and really wanted to know more about her aside from some of the mommy and daddy issues. She had a quirky kind of thing going on (very “Eileenesque”) and I really wanted to know more about her, but I felt as if she was kept at an arms length to some degree.

Overall, I have no regrets reading this book, it had a lot of positives going for it but in the end it just felt like the book was not fully realized. Although it wasn’t a personal favorite, I think it could be a good book to discuss for a buddy or group read. Again the book had some genuinely creepy/unsettling moments and imagery. I enjoyed a lot about the book, but somewhere midway I kind of got lost and I never quite recovered.