Wednesday, September 22, 2021

The Restoration by J.H. Moncrieff

 

Inspired by the author’s overnight stay in a historical haunted house, The Restoration is a thrilling tale of intrigue, murder, and family secrets that refuse to stay buried.

It was the perfect opportunity…or so she thought. When Terri Foxworth is hired to spend a year restoring a crumbling manor house, she believes she’s hit the jackpot. She moves in with her young daughter and high hopes for the project’s success. As the restoration begins to go terribly wrong, she realizes dark forces won’t let her leave the house until its horrible secrets are revealed.

This job could very well be the death of her.




Terri and her 10 year old daughter Dallas move into a dilapidated old manor house. This is summer vacation for Dallas and meant to be "their summer" since she does not live with her mother full time. It's a working summer for Terri who is there to restore the house. Immediately upon moving in she finds out not only that she wasn't the owner's first choice for the job, but that there have been many others before her that either quit or were fired due to their "imaginations" and that there is one former employee in particular she is to watch out for, Gertrude, who is obsessed with the house.
Cue the strange noises and the daughter who knows more than is possible to know about the house's long dead former occupants and you have the set up for a typical haunted house story that also is a bit of a whodunit. 
I found the murder mystery aspect a bit too easy to solve, and the relationship between Terri and her daughter seemed odd. Dallas seemed to go back and forth between being too mature for her age and then too immature for her age. Terri made some weird choices that you would not expect a normal mother to make. That and the fact that I could not really connect with any of the characters made this just an ok read for me.

3 out of 5 stars

I received an e-copy from Netgalley with no obligation to write a review.

Expected publication: October 19th 2021




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