3.5 stars
One Liner: Nice but could have been shorter

1980s, Melbourne
Charlotte knew she was different. She was happy in her father’s stationery store and had no dreams of marriage or motherhood. When Flora Dalton walked into the shop one day, Charlotte couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her.
However, women had many restrictions and social norms defining their lives. When a devastating event led to Charlotte’s grief, she was shifted to the Kew Lunatic Asylum for her own safety. Soon, Charlotte realized that the many women in this place were not lunatics but were declared to be for whatever reasons.
Charlotte is determined to get away from the place and create a future she wants. Can she do it? Will they let her?
The story comes in Charlotte’s third-person POV.

My Thoughts:
The book is 416 pages long and has a super slow start. The lengthy chapters and the writing style further weigh down the pace. The overall pacing is uneven, making it seem like a much longer read.
The scenes at the asylum are definitely better handled. There’s detail, but not so much that it feels like misery porn. There are many characters, but the women manage to retain their individuality. The blend of hope, fear, trauma, healing, etc., works well. Even when nothing seems to happen, we know there’s some change in the characters.
While I liked a few (later) scenes between Flora and Charlotte, some of them were way too dramatic. Combined with the historical setting and the writing style, I couldn’t help but compare it with the black-and-white periodic dramas with OTT dialogues and actions. It doesn’t help that Flora feels surreal in many instances.
There’s also quite a lot of repetition about Charlotte being plain and different and Flora being beautiful. I get it. I don’t need so many reminders!
The last section is pretty solid and has the most action. Charlotte and Flora also grow up a little, which makes their interactions more relatable. And oh, the romance is slow burn and fade-to-black.
The ending is positive and hopeful. Not a perfect HEA (which would have been odd), but the kind of conclusion to call it a bittersweet and heartwarming read.

To summarize, House of Longing has some worthy themes and touches upon important topics. However, it could have been around 30 pages shorter and crisper to be more impactful.
Thank you, NetGalley and Text Publishing, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Set in Melbourne in the late 1800s, this story involves Charlotte who works in German father’s stationery shop, and Flora, an exquisite beauty that Charlotte immediately falls in love with. But Flora’s destiny has already been decided - she is to marry a doctor despite her own reciprocal feelings toward Charlotte. This, plus the death of Charlotte’s father, sees her incarcerated in a lunatic asylum after she tries to drown herself in her grief.

Much of the story then continues in the asylum where class divisions reign supreme. In the 21st century we are horrified at the treatment of these poor women, but those deemed mentally ill in our society are still treated very poorly with drugs, ECT and mandatory detention when we still know very little about the brain and the chemical interactions of hormones which can really affect women’s behaviour.

A fascinating read by this debut author and I hope she continues to write on this theme.

Title: House of Longing
Author: Tara Calaby
Summary: Charlotte has always known she is different. Where other young women see their destiny in marriage and motherhood, the reclusive Charlotte wants only to work with her father in his stationery business; perhaps even run it herself one day. Then Flora Dalton bursts through the shop door and into Charlotte’s life—and a new world of baffling desires and possibilities seems to open up to her.
But Melbourne society of the 1890s is not built to embrace unorthodoxy. When tragedy strikes and Charlotte is unmoored by grief, she finds herself admitted to Kew Lunatic Asylum ‘for her own safety’.
There she learns that women enter the big white house on the hill for many reasons, not all of them to do with lunacy. That her capacity for love, loyalty and friendship is greater than she had ever understood. And that it will take all of these things—along with an unexpected talent for guile—to extract herself from the care of men and make her way back to her heart’s desires.
Copy provided by @netgalley in exchange for honest review.
Likes: Lesbian Victorian period setting, slow burn, asylum friendships, and although the story is centered around the MC longing for the woman she is in love with, the story isn’t only about that, which makes for a great story.
Dislikes: I have zero dislikes. Tara Calaby created an incredible story!

I found this book quite slow going. I enjoyed reading about how Charlotte and Flora became friends in the first place. This book addresses the plight of women of the upper classes in the late 1900s, expected to marry, run a household and produce male heirs, but I didn’t feel the book brought much to the table in terms of originality or interest. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I may have picked this up at the wrong time as it failed to hold my attention and it took quite a time to read. I enjoyed it, but struggled to return to it. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood.

It started pretty interesting, but then as soon as Flora crashes Charlotte's hope for the future and she is committed to the asylum the tone change. What little lgbt romance might had been there is forgotten. Life at the asylum is readable, but not what I signed up for. Flora's character doesn't really evolve or take risks, Charlotte gets her shop back and is able to help her friends from the asylum which is good and feels good to read, but... still not a hint of romance, more than 'we hold hands'.

Such a combination of interesting threads of history. Beautifully set in both Melbourne and what was in those days Kew Lunatic Asylum. Charlotte is an engaging lead character, content to work side by side with her father in their wonderful stationary shop. Into her life comes Flora, a society girl and the attraction is immediate. Fuelled by a camping trip to Gippsland their love progresses but Melbourne in the 1800s isn’t about to welcome two women together. When tragedy strikes Charlotte finds herself most believably in Kew. The research of this is excellent and the story races forward. Worthwhile reading . Thanks to @textpublishing and to @netgalley for the copy to review. The opinions expressed are my own.

I love a good book about strong women and the trials and tribulations of life for women back in early times. This book is set in the 1890's and follows the struggles of Charlotte, a young woman who wants nothing more than to follow in her father's footsteps and work along side him in his stationary business. But things don't turn out as planned and the grief and hardship in Charlotte's life leads her to to be admitted to and asylum for her own safety... Or so they say!

I love that this story is based in Melbourne and is a debut novel for this author. And what a wonderful job she has done in writing this one. It is so well written and it really draws you in and takes you on a journey with Charlotte. You feel her emotions and pain, you see how she learns about life and much more, it is rich in history and it is so real.

This is a book that will engage you right from the start. It is emotional, heartbreaking at times yet still has that softness to it that makes it easy to read. I loved it and do highly recommend it to all who love a good read.

Thank you NetGalley and Text Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

What an important read.

This was such an enjoyable yet harsh book. Dealing with dark themes such as homophobia and misogyny against lesbian relationships, with beautiful yet easy to digest writing it was everything I would of hoped for and more.

The characters are excellently written each with their own deep issues that made me feel for them. I cried, I laughed I went through an emotional rollercoaster all because of this. Such a gorgeous and dare I say flawless book I can't recommend it enough!!

Charlotte is not like other women her age who are meant to be out and about at social functions dressed up in the latest Victorian fashions trying to attract the eye of a potential husband…nothing irks her more.
Charlotte has dreams…something that is not encouraged in women of that time, and possibly bordering on rebellion.
She loves her solitary life among the books and paraphernalia of her fathers’ beautifully appointed stationary shop and has no desire to fit in to the expected norms, where her destiny is predetermined by the socially accepted standards of others.

It is just her and her father now and they enjoy a quietly comfortable companionship living above their shop where her father minds the business end of things.
Charlotte looks after the housekeeping side of things, occasionally serving customers in the shop.
It is her hope that her father will one day trust her to carry on his legacy with the business, though she is content to continue with the way things are right now.
She adores her father, and she adores the shop, but she longs for the time when she might prove that women can run a successful business without the need of a mans’ support. Where a woman might make her own life choices without judgment.

Set in the 1890s in Melbourne, in a time where high society dictates how women must dress and behave in order to be accepted amongst the elite…so they may find a suitable husband…Charlotte’s preferred choice of an independent lifestyle is threatening to have her left on the shelf without a husband to keep her, or the chance of raising a family, a socially unacceptable and undesirable position as a spinster.

Sensitivity written, this is a very touching and engaging story about an unexpected encounter where two souls meet in a moment in time when least expected.
Where, in a split second, each recognised something in the other and a deep and abiding connection was made.
This is a moving story of a love and life unrequited…or perhaps?…. No spoilers here.
It is an easy and engaging read with elements of surprise and apprehension, it is so much more than its blurb suggests and I can recommend it as such for lovers of good historical romantic fiction.

4⭐️s

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for my digital copy to read and review.