There's much to parse in this British contemporary/Edwardian Ghostly mystery. The Narrator, a former academic, now a freelance genealogist, carries a trunk load of baggage from childhood and adolescence. She's currently staying in a Renovated Edwardian Asylum while working through the Asylum archives for the Development corporation. It's also the area of London in which she grew up, and the penthouse resident is her bestie while growing up.

Additionally, she is contracted by a San Francisco resident to uncover the mysteries of one of the gentlewoman inmates. There's enough Supernatural Interference to keep the cauldron boiling, which in turn creates danger and potential fatality. Caution: the unraveling of the Asylum narrative reveals some very ugly facts, disturbing to some (many) readers. The reading is not as fast-paced as I would have hoped, as discovering the truths from 1907 is spaced out through journal entries, and our Narrator is constantly involved in her own past drama.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC.

This book was okay. It wasn't scary, spooky, not even creepy. Honestly, it was kind of boring. The title, cover, synopsis is what drew me in and it was all just underwhelming and forgettable.

I hate to be a party pooper, I really do, but for a book titled "The Haunting" and described with words horror and gay romance it was extremely underwhelming. It was what drawn me to this title, yet it's also what didn't work for it.

For instance, I wanted creeps. Spooky vibes. Dark undertones. The only part that actually defends itself in this category is the ending, yet it was so... surprising (not in strictly positive way) that it felt ridiculous. The very rest of THoAH is a try to write a solving murder mystery type of story, and because this trope is a pet peeve of mine I feel dissapointed. The whole "solving" is a group of mcs sitting in different places, reading a diary that gives them all the answers. Sometimes they move in order to research, but it's so not the main plot it shows.

Don't get me wrong, the story is interesting more or less. The twist at the end? Pretty cool, but because the whole book was so static and one-way it felt a bit out of place. I still don't know how old main characters are and what are their relationships between them, this part is messy and again, very straightforward. No side plots, not much of characters depth, not many emotions awaken in reader.

I'm not a big fan of stories divided into two perspectives – one from now and the second from the past. But in THoAH it's actually pretty cool, if I had to point advantages of this title. Despite my disappointment in plot I can see that the author put a lot of heart into it. I was ready for a spooky, full of action ghost hunt, not calm novella about family issues. There are people that will like it, I'm more than sure about that, it's just not mine kind of jam.

Rounding up to three stars


The light hearted manner of the buffy references and banter didn't quite match up to the stories told in the asylum for me.
It was an interesting tangled Web of characters and how they fit together, but I never once got the creepy feeling I was hoping for.
Just didn't really work for me.