In this horrifying tale Lucy Acosta is forced to watch as her family crumbles around her. Having grown up in a Victorian mansion with her dad, aunt and cousin Lucy has gotten used to her life there. But when her aunt disappears and her cousin soon starts hearing things, there is hardly nothing Lucy can do to help. But when she starts hearing voices too, she finds herself confronting the dark legacy of the women in her family.
I give this book 3.5 stars (out of five). It’s an absolutely chilling horror from start to finish, starting right off with a death that leads to dozens more. Lucy Acosta grew up in a Victorian mansion with her dad, aunt Penelope and cousin Margaret. They’ve always been a strange mis-matched family but they made it work. The mansion’s also tied to a very popular country club, which the Acosta’s are a huge part of, they host dinner parties and events very often, etc.
It all starts when their cook Walter commits suicide and Lucy is the one to find him, that’s seemingly the first thing that went wrong. Then a few weeks later when Aunt Penelope goes for a walk in the woods and never comes back everyone panics, looking for her. Lucy’s sick with worry, not just for her missing aunt but for her cousin, who’s growing more and more distant. They used to be best friends and now Margaret hardly talks to her and when she does Lucy can tell she’s hiding something.
When she finally tells Lucy what’s wrong, it isn’t good. Margaret is hearing Penelope’s voice from inside the wall, talking to her, telling her to do things, etc. Lucy obviously doesn’t believe that and thinks Margaret needs help, she tries telling her Dad but he brushes it off saying she’s just grieving. This eventually leads to Margaret also committing suicide.
Lucy, now basically alone, has to process both the deaths of her aunt and her cousin and best friend. While grieving she also starts hearing similar voices coming from inside the walls.
[Spoiler warning, skip the next paragraph to avoid them]
As the story progresses Lucy can clearly hear Margaret’s voice and her dead mom’s voice coming from inside the walls, and with nearly forgotten memories and random clues Lucy discovers the cult all the women in the country club are a part of. They worship the Mother who makes them immortal (it gets really confusing at the end and I’m not going to pretend I know what’s going on enough to fully explain it to you).
Anyway, let’s just say the ending gets really complicated and scary, I personally really liked it and thought it was great and terrifying.