Gothic, intriguing and at times delightfully creepy: In Darkness, Shadows Breathe by Catherine Cavendish #bookreview #InDarknessShadowsBreathe #RandomThingsTours

Carol and Nessa are strangers but not for much longer. In a luxury apartment and in the walls of a modern hospital, the evil that was done continues to thrive. They are in the hands of an entity that knows no boundaries and crosses dimensions – bending and twisting time itself – and where danger waits in every shadow. The battle is on for their bodies and souls and the line between reality and nightmare is hard to define.
Through it all, the words of Lydia Warren Carmody haunt them. But who was she? And why have Carol and Nessa been chosen?
The answer lies deep in the darkness…

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Hi and welcome to my review of In Darkness, Shadows Breathe! Huge thanks to Anne Cater for the blog tour invite and to Flame Tree Press for the beautiful proof!

In darkness…

… we find Carol. She is housesitting: while the owners are away for six months she is minding their fancy apartment, much fancier than she would ever be able to afford herself, pretty amazing for a former foster kid who trusts no one and has little to call her own. But then she starts having hallucinations or visions of a sort. She finds out that the apartment building she is currently staying at was built on the site of a nineteenth-century complex including a hospital, a workhouse and an asylum. Her new home is literally on top of the old hospital. How’s that for Gothic and ominous?!

After ending up in the hospital around the corner, her reality becomes even more warped. This present-day hospital was also built on the site of the nineteenth-century complex and there are strange things going on today. One minute she’s in the here and now, the next she’s stepped back in time, where she seems to be in another woman’s body. Intrigued to say the least, I couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening. Were the apartment and the hospital haunted because of their history, was Carol? What was the connection? Many questions, no answers and a HUGE need to know!

… shadows breathe…

… down Nessa’s neck as she wakes up in hospital having had surgery. Fully caught up in Carol’s ghostly story, making the switch to Nessa’s halfway through the book was a bit like starting an entirely new novel all together. Although a bit confused, I was mostly very curious as to how these two women might be connected. It soon becomes clear that Nessa’s in the same hospital Carol was in, and she too sees things others can’t. I immediately warmed to her. Fighting cancer she should just be left alone, not harassed by evil spirits, poor woman!

Trying to make sense of the events on the one hand, and then also switching from Carol’s story, told in the third person past tense, to Nessa’s, told in the first person past tense, was a tad confusing, but not in a frustrating way. It just made me want to turn the pages faster because I was fully immersed in the story and on tenterhooks. I absolutely had to know what was what and my curiosity propelled me through Carol’s and Nessa’s hugely intriguing story. 

This is my first Catherine Cavendish novel but I’m looking forward to reading more. I enjoyed her writing style and her ability to keep me entertained and engaged throughout.

In Darkness, Shadows Breathe is an intriguing and at times delightfully creepy ghost story that I enjoyed very much.