She Treads Softly: The Shape of Night

Monday, September 30, 2019

The Shape of Night

The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen
Penguin Random House: 10/1/19
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13: 9781984820952

The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen is a recommended Gothic tale of a haunted house that may be lethal for women.

Ava Collette, a cook book writer, flees Boston to a remote village in Maine where she has rented an isolated, old restored house named Brodie’s Watch. Ava feels she can finish writing her cookbook here. Soon, though, she sees the spectral vision of Captain Brody, the sea captain who built the original house. The ghost appears to Ava on some night and she begins to look forward to his visits. This haunting prompts Ava to look into the history of the house. She is also looking for the woman who rented the house before her in order to return some of the possessions she left behind. Ava soon discovers that the house seems to be lethal to women.

This is a well written novel, but it does require the reader to be into Gothic/paranormal/BDSM/murder novels. I'm not a fan of the combination. I am choosing to overlook parts of the novel that I skimmed while reading in order to get to the ending of the novel. You can easily do this and not lose the narrative thread. Gerritsen is an excellent writer, which I'm taking into consideration in my rating.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.