Book 105, 2020

[chez_jae]

The Ghosts of Idlewood by M.L. Bullock

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I finished reading The Ghosts of Idlewood by ML Bullock last night. It's the first in the "Idlewood" series about a team of historians with special abilities, and the haunted mansion they've been hired to restore. Apparently, this is a spin-off of the author's "Seven Sisters" series, which I have not read. While I don't think I was missing out, I still felt some things lacked context.

Historian and new mother Carrie Jo Stuart has been hired to restore Idlewood plantation to its former glory. Almost immediately, she and her assistant, Rachel, begin having odd occurrences in the home. Carrie has issues in her personal life, as well. She fears her husband's assistant, Libby, is monopolizing his time and looking to replace her in Ashland's affections. In the meantime, Rachel keeps feeling a pull to Idlewood, and she wants to solve the mystery of what became of the younger Ferguson children, who disappeared 150 years ago.

The story was told in first person pov, but the pov switched between several characters, and it vacillated between the past and the present. I am a firm believer that if you're going to write in first person pov, you should commit to one character. In this story, however, the switching perspectives and times added to the plot, rather than detracting from it. Characters were good, and the plot was creepy without being frightening.

However, I had a hard time with how young the Ferguson children were. Percy was married at 15?! And, the parents were trying to marry off his twin sister at that same age? I did a quick Google search for average age of marriage in 1870, and it was about 23 for women and 26 for men. Also, I never got a grasp on which of the two boys was older, married Percy or single Michael. WTF'ing over these points sort of threw me out of the story each time I was reading passages set in the past.

Favorite lines:
♦ In the end I supposed they'd merely crossed the invisible silver line and entered adulthood, a land where there was no fun, only duty and unhappiness.
♦ Who the heck was Shaun Cassidy?

Overall, I enjoyed the story. Four stars.