Stevie‘s review of Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James
Historical Gothic Horror published by NAL 05 Apr 16
I’m a great fan of gothic novels, and while I prefer the air of menace to have a human element at the back of it, or result from the lead character’s overactive imagination, I’m not totally opposed to some supernatural elements being thrown into the mix. While I like the Victorian heyday of gothic, I’m even happier with Edwardian of inter-war settings, so something set in 1921 with echoes harking back to the First World War is bound to appeal. Of course, I do know a lot of random facts about Britain in the early twentieth century, and so it may be rather too easy for a blatant factual error to throw me right out of the story and leave me wondering whether I can trust the author on any other stated facts and plot points either.
And that was exactly the problem I had with this book. In the very first chapter, we’re told that the heroine’s husband was serving in the RAF early in 1918 – when she last saw him – and later, we’re told several times about how he joined the RAF at the beginning of the war and served in the RAF right up to when he was shot down later in 1918. The RAF was formed in April 1918; anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the Biggles books knows that WWI pilots served in the RFC (and also the RNAF, but that seems to be rather a poor cousin where novel heroes are concerned). Thus, I lost a lot of faith with the author having read only a few pages (I’m prepared to give her a little bit of a get-out here and wonder whether her editor forced the change on the book, but in that case she should have stood her ground and kept the facts straight).
Onwards to the rest of the story… Jo Manders is left impoverished when her pilot husband, Alex, is lost on a mission over enemy territory towards the end of the war, and paperwork issues at the War Office mean that she cannot be officially declared a widow or claim a widow’s pension. She finds employment as a paid companion to her husband’s aunt, and after spending some months travelling Europe on art-buying expeditions, they return to England, to a house where Alex spent part of his childhood. The household is troubled to say the least: Alex’s aunt and uncle barely speak to each other, his younger cousin died towards the end of the war – apparently by suicide after years struggling with mental health issues – and her older brother has been hospitalised by a war wound since around the same time.
Jo sympathises with the family – her own mother has been institutionalised since Jo reached adulthood, and another reason for Jo’s poverty is her determination that her mother gets the best possible care – but she very soon begins to suspect that the supposed suicide was actually murder. Jo is haunted by the dead girl, along with her imaginary – or possibly demonic – dog, and determines to find out the truth. Along the way, various suspects turn up, and family members reveal themselves to be not the people Jo thought they were. I’d almost forgiven the author for her early errors, even though a few other characterisation issues had shown up, but then the ending to the main plot came as a shocking disappointment. I want my protagonists to solve the mystery by using their talents and piecing the clues together, but that’s not what happened here. (Highlight following for spoiler.) The murderer reveals himself with much metaphorical cackling and twirling of metaphorical moustaches, and then tries to kill everyone who might reveal his secret.
So that was a total let-down as well, and I won’t be giving this author a second chance, I’m afraid.
Grade: C
Summary:
England, 1921. Three years after her husband, Alex, disappeared, shot down over Germany, Jo Manders still mourns his loss. Working as a paid companion to Alex’s wealthy, condescending aunt, Dottie Forsyth, Jo travels to the family’s estate in the Sussex countryside. But there is much she never knew about her husband’s origins…and the revelation of a mysterious death in the Forsyths’ past is just the beginning…
All is not well at Wych Elm House. Dottie’s husband is distant, and her son was grievously injured in the war. Footsteps follow Jo down empty halls, and items in her bedroom are eerily rearranged. The locals say the family is cursed, and that a ghost in the woods has never rested. And when Jo discovers her husband’s darkest secrets, she wonders if she ever really knew him. Isolated in a place of deception and grief, she must find the truth or lose herself forever.
And then a familiar stranger arrives at Wych Elm House…
No excerpt found.