To help me not to wonder how I ended up like this: GIRLS OF BRACKENHILL.

Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spooky, eerie & captivating thriller

As a kid, Hannah spent several summers at Brackenhill, her aunt and uncle's beautiful mansion in the Catskills. Joined by her older sister, Julia, they enjoyed a peaceful time away from their troubled mother and her boyfriend. But that final summer, Hannah made the journey home alone after Julia disappeared. Now, seventeen years later, Hannah is back at Brackenhill, accompanied by her calm and steady fiance Huck, to deal with the aftermath of her Aunt Fae's death. Her uncle Stuart is quite ill and Hannah must handle the necessary affairs. But once at Brackenhill, long buried memories flood to the surface, along with some undiscovered family secrets.

"She'd escaped Brackenhill once. She could do it again."

I read this completely captivating thriller in one breathless day. It's such a wonderfully eerie and ghostly mystery that excellently captures the spooky atmosphere of Brackenhill. I'm all for a read with a creepy castle, ghostly happenings, and a history of missing girls. Told in a then (Hannah and Julia's summers at Brackenhill) and now format, Moretti sucks you in from the beginning, making the reader feel as if they are a part of the haunted happenings at Brackenhill.

"The Ghost Girls of Brackenhill are an urban legend."

The result is a twisted and dark story--a true Gothic ghost tale. I figured out a few pieces, but still found this impossible to put down. Moretti excels at weaving in the devastation of family secrets and small town mystery. As Hannah unravels the mystery of her family history and her sister's disappearance, we do as well, and you'll share her sense of dread and the overall foreboding that sweeps across the pages.

I wished the ending offered a bit more resolution, but this is an excellent, haunting, and spooky supernatural read. You'll be madly flipping the pages (with the lights on)! 4+ stars.

I received a copy of this novel from Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer in return for an unbiased review.

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