Barrington Hall is a place of secrets—something Dan Morgan has worked hard to forget. But when a heart-breaking loss brings him back to the place where he spent his childhood summers, Barrington Hall will do what it must to make him remember.
Faye Morgan blames her husband for the death of their teenage son. She doesn’t want to leave the place Toby called home. But after she catches a glimpse of … catches a glimpse of a strange boy in the midnight woods and learns of his connection with Barrington Hall, her need to learn more pulls her further and further into a nightmare world filled with past atrocities and the burning flame of revenge.
A tale of grief and horror, The Ruin of Delicate Things explores how loss can leave a hole inside of us. A hole large enough for anything to crawl into.
“Gorgeously written and compulsively readable, The Ruin of Delicate Things is as beautiful as it is tragic. Beverley Lee’s work has always been memorable for its sumptuous descriptions and well-drawn characters, but this fiendishly macabre fairytale puts her right at the top of my must-read list. Whether or not you keep your doors and windows shut, this one will sink its teeth into you.”
– Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of KIN and MASTER OF THE MOORS
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Dan and Faye, a middle-aged couple, battle ghosts and woodland creatures in a rural town with an abandoned mansion in the woods.
PROS:
I loved Lee’s Gothic descriptions of the old mansion. She even manages to make what should be a quaint cottage eerie and foreboding.
Dan and Faye are convincing characters, and they come to life on the pages. They are grieving over a death in the family, and I felt their grief and guilt.
The scary creatures are a new take on small beings from the forest. Kudos to Lee for her creativity!
CONS:
The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that sometimes the wording was odd, and I had to re-read the sentence . . . a sound that pierces light (hunh??), for example, or a character that’s running full speed across the room and in the next phrase she’s “stumbling” across the floor. But mostly Lee’s descriptions and action scenes are fabulous, so I only took off half a star.
The end is a tad ambiguous, but I read it twice and decided that the clues are there and that everything wraps up nicely, so no stars off. In fact, now that I’ve had time to reflect on the story, I think the end is very satisfying, despite the ambiguity.
OVERALL:
I got this book through my Kindle Unlimited subscription. The Kindle version is well formatted for a smooth read. Overall, 4.5 eerie stars!
Beverley Lee is one of my the few auto-read authors on my shelf–I will read anything she writes no matter what it is. Her writing is magnificent. She finds perfect balance in all things. I am not a horror fan in the least and I ate this book up. It’s delightfully creepy (I had to assess each night whether I was brave enough to read in the dark) and full of history and secrets and revenge and spine-tingling thrills. If you’re looking for a masterfully written story dripping with atmosphere, then I highly recommend this one.
Wow. This was dark from start to finish. Elements I’m scared of: haunted houses, people showing themselves in mirrors, ghosts… and it was all present here. As well as the feeling of grief of losing a child, which is every parent’s nightmare.
I am glad I mostly read this on a sunny porch, I was sucked in but could at least leave by looking up!
Faye and Dan Morgan retreat to a house in the woods where he spent his childhood summers in an attempt to escape the crushing loss of their son. Dan has no real memories of his time there—he is haunted and doesn’t even know why. Beverley Lee does a wonderful job creating a sense of foreboding. Both Faye and Dan know something is off right from the start but this couple is so detached from each other that they don’t compare notes. Their estrangement is not helped by the odd atmosphere both at the house, the small town and the surrounding woods. The story starts out slow but when it takes off I couldn’t put it down. I found myself literally holding my breath. The scenes featuring Barrington Hall are some of my favorites. I felt like I was right there, moving through the rooms, wanting to cover my eyes but needing know what happens next! I loved the gothic atmosphere. Lee has written a five-star read. Highly recommended!
I read an early(ish) version of Lee’s newest dark tale, and I felt so fortunate when it landed in my inbox. I fell in love with her writing with The Making of Gabriel Davenport and couldn’t wait to see what she’d done next!
This story is everything the perfect horror needs to be. I’m a huge wimp, so I don’t do well with stories that are outright horrifying or gory for the sake of being gory. It was Lee’s first books that made me realise that I had the genre all wrong, and The Ruin of Delicate Things proved to me again how much more horror is! This story broke my heart at the very beginning and at the very end, and it kept me delightfully disturbed throughout.
Lee has a beautiful way of playing with shadows, and that talent seeps into every book by her I’ve read. She understands the fears that lurk in the dark and adds them to her books in a natural, non-forced way – they simply are, just like our fears of the dark.
There are so many threads working together to make this story what it is, and when they all came together and things began to add up, I had chills.
It doesn’t have a happy ending, but it does have the perfect ending for this story – and as you might know, I love a book that doesn’t force a happy ending on a book where it just doesn’t fit!
I’m so excited to see what Lee does next, and will pre-order whatever she conjures up.
I can only really say that the time I spent in this book showed the level of my appreciation to both Beverley’s craft and distinctive, lush, atmospheric voice, which she employed to illustrate this beautiful tale of grief. I use the word illustrate deliberately, Beverley’s voice is something I can only compare to brush strokes. At times the descriptive quality of the narrative is so full of detail, it becomes the narrative itself. There were moments where the descriptions of the location in the story were so well realized, there was nothing left to imagine. It’s distinctive, and as such, I have to mention it first, regardless of the craft that has gone into this novel as well. Beverley, thank you, it was wonderful to spend time in your world.
Ok, so that aside, this story is one of grief. It is the core of the novel, and how that grief can destroy a person (or persons) to the extent that the grief itself is the only thing holding that life together. The story is very much a two-parter, the beginning paints the scene, is a slower read due to the detail and rendering of the protagonists, the village, the hall, the unspoken knowledge that surrounds all of the players in the game around the two MC’s – and then the horror begins in earnest in the second part, that turns the book on its head and into a survivor tale. And there are a lot of things ranged against the pair, to survive.
This isn’t a book to read in one sitting. There was way, way too much in it that I had to process – so honestly, though other reviewers have mentioned that they thought the start was too slow, for me that wasn’t the case, it was more that the voice itself dictated the pace. And that thinking time was required to process the story whilst basking in Beverley’s prose.
I’m picking up Beverley’s Vampire novels on the back of this, even though vampire stories are not really my thing (although Brian Keene’s “With teeth” certainly was).
5 out of 5 ‘s for voice alone. Exquisite grief horror, Beverley. Thank yo
What drew me to this book was the cover followed by the title. It wasn’t until I finished the book that I saw how much the title reflected the story… life, love, innocence, friendship, guilt. The fragility of it all. All delicate things. All ruined.
The Ruin of Delicate Things is a well written story of grief, love and guilt. I happened to read this at night during a lightning and thunder storm with pounding rain which heightened the effect. Lee’s descriptive passages are well written; setting the backdrop for this story of terror and grief. Why don’t characters listen when you try to tell them something or warn them? Why in the world would someone willing go inside a creepy abandoned and foreboding house on the cusp of a brewing storm? Someone always has to pay for the sins of the past…
Lee easily led me into the story even though I knew something bad was going to happen. I kept telling Dan and Faye don’t open the door, stay in the cottage, don’t go outside, stay out of the woods; but they didn’t listen to me. And me? I couldn’t stop reading and turning the next page until, I too, disappeared into this story of dread and dark magic.
Sidebar: I’ve read Lee’s Gabriel Davenport series and found it just as horrifically enticing, if not more so, as The Ruin of Delicate Things.
The Ruin of Delicate Things is a tragic, haunting tale that will have you turning the pages late into the night and sleeping with the light on. Multiple tragic events are woven together to create the narrative and keep you guessing. I loved the characters, too, which made me love this story even more!
The Ruin of Delicate Things: what a title, and it sums up this story to perfection.
Grief, guilt, tragedy, it’s all there, but interwoven through a tale set in a cottage, in a woods, with an abandoned mansion nearby. Yes, all the elements which make for a fantastical, spooky ride.
For me, Beverley Lee’s descriptive skills are spot on. Right from the start I was immersed in every scene, with Barrington Hall, in particular, vividly depicted. This gave it a gothic feel which I love.
I found myself empathizing with several of the characters throughout and for different reasons: Faye dealing with the loss of her son, Dan likewise but also because he was guilt-ridden because of what had happened in the past, and even Corrigan’s back story.
All in all, thoroughly enjoyable with some very atmospheric, creepy parts.
Add it to your autumn TBR list – you won’t regret it!
If you like silly horror stories, this is for you.