The Room in the Attic by Louise Douglas
Genre: Historical fiction, Women's fiction, General fiction, Gothic
Read: 4th October 2021
Amazon
Published: 12th October 2021
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
A child who does not know her name…
In 1903 fishermen find a wrecked boat containing a woman, who has been badly beaten, and a young girl. An ambulance is sent for, and the two survivors are taken to All Hallows, the imposing asylum, hidden deep on Dartmoor. The woman remains in a coma, but the little girl, Harriet, awakens and is taken to an attic room, far away from the noise of the asylum, and is put in the care of Nurse Emma Everdeen.
Two motherless boys banished to boarding school…
In 1993, All Hallows is now a boarding school. Following his mother’s death and his father’s hasty remarriage, Lewis Tyler is banished to Dartmoor, stripped of his fashionable clothes, shorn of his long hair, and left feeling more alone than ever. There he meets Isak, another lost soul, and whilst refurbishment of the dormitories is taking place, the boys are marooned up in the attic, in an old wing of the school.
Cries and calls from the past that can no longer be ignored…
All Hallows is a building full of memories, whispers, cries from the past. As Lewis and Isak learn more about the fate of Harriet, and Nurse Emma’s desperate fight to keep the little girl safe, it soon becomes clear there are ghosts who are still restless.
Are they ghosts the boys hear at night in the room above, are they the unquiet souls from the asylum still caught between the walls? And can Lewis and Isak bring peace to All Hallows before the past breaks them first…
MY REVIEW:
Where do I begin? WOW! Just...WOW! This is my first foray into Louise Douglas and I wasn't sure what to expect...but THE ROOM IN THE ATTIC just blew me away! I can't even begin to categorise its genre...is it historical? Is it women's fiction? Is it a mystery? Is it even paranormal (which is not really my thing)? Basically, it's a bit of everything rolled into a gothic ghost story complete with a rambling asylum and strange noises in the attic. The plot is twisty, the scene is atmospheric and the characters are completely engaging. This book had me absorbed from the very first page right through the very last...so much so that I read it in one sitting! I began it when I went to bed, thinking I'd read for a couple of hours before hitting the hay, but noooo...I simply had to keep reading till the end...right up till 4.20am!
So the first thing that drew me to the book was the fact it was dual timeline. I love these types of books where two stories unfold and are seamlessly woven together by the end. But this one goes one step further than that which to say much more would be to reveal spoilers...and you really must read the book yourself to experience it. The other thing which drew me was the whole atmospheric setting of a creepy asylum on Dartmoor miles from anywhere and the mystery that unfolds there.
On a cold and rainy night in 1903, fishermen come across a seemingly deserted boat floating at sea off the Devon coast. Upon closer inspection they discover a young child and an unconscious woman laid out barely alive. Their rescuers take them to the local doctor who sedates the distressed young child and the two are transferred to All Hallows asylum on Dartmoor. There, the woman is given the Royal Suite where she is to be treated and recover in private away from the asylum's inmates whilst the child is taken into care by 70 year old nurse, Emma Everdeen who has lived most of her life at All Hallows. To protect the child from the inmates, both she and the nurse are secluded to the asylum's attic rooms until her mother has been nursed back to health.
But the child, whose name is Harriet, is reluctant to reveal any details about who they are or where they come from or where they may have been heading when they were found near death in the freezing waters. Emma slowly begins to extract information from the child and they form an unlikely alliance. Emma still grieves for the child she lost fifty years before and Harriet longs to be reunited with her mother. However, the woman shows no signs of waking from her comatose state and to reunite the pair now would only distress the child further. But the more time Emma spends with Harriet, the more she grows fond of the child and fears the time when she must hand her back to her mother.
But something sinister is lurking beyond the walls of All Hallows and Emma feels a malevolence she can't explain and a desperate need to protect little Harriet. But at what cost?
Ninety years later in 1993, 13 year old Lewis Tyler has been shipped off to boarding school and finds himself billeted at All Hallows, now repurposed as a boarding school for boys. Misunderstood and grieving the loss of his mother, Lewis finds himself banished here when his father remarries. The school has recently suffered flood damage and with part of the west wing closed for renovations, Lewis is given accommodation in an attic room with one other student, Isak Salen.
The boys begin a tentative friendship having been forced to share a room but soon find themselves sharing confidences and a shared interest in the history of All Hallows when it was an asylum, stemming from the skeletal remains Lewis uncovers in grounds outside of the asylum's graveyard. Lewis and Isak decide to solve the mystery of who the remains were and why they were buried in unconsecrated ground reserved for criminals. Added to that are the creaking noises they hear in the night as well as the shadows that pass their door. The wails and moans that appear to haunt the old asylum have them terrified and longing to uncover what is really rattling around up there. Their enquiries lead them to the school library where there is a nook specially devoted to the history of All Hallows and everything therein. And there they come across an old nursing manual that had once belonged to Emma Everdeen and an autobiography written by an inmate Thalia Nunes, as they endeavour to uncover what really happened in the room in the attic ninety years ago.
There are several themes highlighted throughout the story. The first being abandonment as Lewis, Isak and Emma were all abandoned by their families for one reason or another. All of them dumped at All Hallows for different reasons but abandoned all the same. Identity is another as Lewis was stripped of his goth clothes, piercings, hair and make-up and given the standard uniform that is issued to every student so that they all resemble each other. The same could be said for those in 1903 when patients were stripped of anything that defined them and women, particularly those who were seen as unruly and free-thinking, were simply thrown into asylums as punishment until they learned to conform with society and to be respectable. Then there is grief. Both Lewis and Isak lost their mothers whilst Emma lost her child as each of them struggle to come to terms with their losses. And finally there is isolation. This is something that can have a detrimental effect on even the sanest of minds in how it can play with one's definition of reality.
But what I love most about THE ROOM IN THE ATTIC is the chilling atmospheric feel. It has that real gothic sense in the classic Victorian building that brings that sense of foreboding in the form of an asylum where the demented are imprisoned, shackled and their souls tortured. It lends a creepiness to the story that is enough to leave you sleeping with the lights on. It is eerie without being scary but it is still chilling.
I also love the short snappy chapters - always a favourite of mine to keep a story moving at a fast pace. And fast paced it is.
Whilst reading this story, I was reminded of a movie I once saw called "The Love Letter" in which a man in the present day finds an old letter in an antique desk he purchases and he responds, placing the letter where he found the original one which then ensues a correspondence between himself in he present day and a woman from the 1800s. But there is nothing romantic here as this story is chilling and sinister with an atmospheric eeriness...but still one you just cannot put down.
THE ROOM IN THE ATTIC is a brilliant tale that sweeps you back and forth from 1903 to 1993 and back again until finally landing in the present day of 2021. The chapters alternate between Emma in 1903 and Lewis in 1993 at a fast pace that will have you turning the pages at the rate of knots.
There is so much to love about this book! And love it, I did! It totally consumed me and I cannot wait to delve into more of Louise Douglas' tales if this one is anything to go by!
Perfect for fans of gothic tales with the right amount of atmospheric creepiness as a ghostly page turner.
I would like to thank #LouiseDouglas, #Netgalley, #BoldwoodBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #TheRoomInTheAttic in exchange for an honest review.
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