House of Shades: A Novel

Dillsworth’s second novel is at once a Gothic tale of old sins coming back to hunt the living, a touching story of redemption and growth, and a historical novel about the lingering effects of the slave trade in England.

When Hester Reeves, a doctoress, is asked to help nurse the dying Gervaise Cherville, she thinks only of the chance the money will give her. Ten pounds, in the early 1800s, will allow her to move out of London with her husband, sister, and unborn child, starting a new life for all of them in the country. The longer she stays at the house, the more she realizes she is being drawn into a story of the Cherville family’s old wrongs, of the people Gervaise kept enslaved both in Honduras and in London, and of secrets that will impact her own family.

Hester is a compelling protagonist, sympathetic but still flawed, and the secondary characters are fascinating The book falls short in only two ways. Some of the dialogue feels rather too modern, especially when compared with lines that could have come right from a period drama, and it doesn’t always strike the right balance between an unsettling atmosphere and its softer themes.