Freaky Friday* Review: Hester Fox's THE WITCH OF WILLOW HALL.

​*So much for my Freaky Friday posts. I made it one week. **puts head in hands.**
 
Make me watch a scary movie and I’m the clichéd person watching through the tiny slivers of space between my fingers. But give me a terrifying book and I’m an intrepid explorer, the person who isn’t scared to investigate the suspicious noise or bewildering chill in the house.
 
 I’ve been waiting for a book to scare me, and I didn’t fully realize it until I began Hester Fox’s powerfully atmospheric The Witch of Willow Hall.
 
Unlike the romances I’ve been reading, this book offered no guaranteed Happily Ever After, and I could feel that uncertainty—and the fears, anger, and resentment—burning on every page as Lydia Montrose settled into her new home, Willow Hall, and learned its secrets.
 
It’s not just Willow Hall that’s the mystery here.
 
There is something…different about Lydia, something her mother tells her she must hide from others forever. It leads to Tommy Bishop being hurt when he and Lydia are children; it divides Lydia and her sister, Catherine, reminding them both of the first time their family was almost ruined; and it threatens to erupt at Willow Hall, where they’ve moved in an effort to escape Boston and the public ruination of their family.
 
Fox is adept at pacing; she shrouds so much of the house and characters in mystery, and then slowly pulls back the veil bit by bit, until Lydia—and the readers—have just enough information to scuttle along until the next crisis. And she’s even more skilled in how she makes use of imagery. The characters and their wild, isolated, terrifying setting are richly evoked, particularly when it comes to the creepy little details that distinguish a really good ghost story from a mediocre one.
 
There were a few details of the plot that I questioned—they didn’t seem to entirely make sense in terms of characterization—but The Witch of Willow Hall gave me so much that I was looking for: it's a well-crafted, engrossing ghost story that had me shivering in fright and glee.
 
**I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.