THE WHISPERING HOUSE
From the acclaimed author of The Orphan of Salt Winds
It was like holding a couple of jigsaw pieces in my palm, knowing there was a whole picture to be made, if I could only find the rest.
Freya Lyell is struggling to move on from her sister Stella’s death five years ago. Visiting the bewitching Byrne Hall, only a few miles from the scene of the tragedy, she discovers a portrait of Stella—a portrait she had no idea existed, in a house Stella never set foot in.
From the acclaimed author of The Orphan of Salt Winds
It was like holding a couple of jigsaw pieces in my palm, knowing there was a whole picture to be made, if I could only find the rest.
Freya Lyell is struggling to move on from her sister Stella’s death five years ago. Visiting the bewitching Byrne Hall, only a few miles from the scene of the tragedy, she discovers a portrait of Stella—a portrait she had no idea existed, in a house Stella never set foot in. Or so she thought.
Driven to find out more about her sister’s secrets, Freya is drawn into the world of Byrne Hall and its owners: charismatic artist Cory and his sinister, watchful mother. But as Freya lingers in this mysterious, centuries-old house, her relationship with Cory crosses the line into obsession and the darkness behind the locked doors of the estate threatens to spill out.
In prose as lush and atmospheric as Byrne Hall itself, Elizabeth Brooks weaves a simmering, propulsive tale of art, sisterhood, and all-consuming love: the ways it can lead us toward tenderness, nostalgia, and longing, as well as shocking acts of violence.
- Tin House
- Paperback
- March 2021
- 392 Pages
- 9781951142360
Buy the Book
$16.95
About Elizabeth Brooks
Elizabeth Brooks’ debut novel, The Orphan of Salt Winds, was hailed by BuzzFeed as “evocative, gothic, and utterly transportive.” She grew up in Chester, England, graduated from Cambridge University, and resides on the Isle of Man with her husband and two children.
Praise
“Brooks cooks up a spellbinding gothic story featuring a sinister country house. This is an exquisitely creepy page-turner.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Whispering House is atmospheric and creepy, and as needy, nostalgic Freya is pulled deeper and deeper into its shadows, the reader’s worry for her grows—and, with it, the novel’s suspense. Freya is haunted by words she wishes she could take back, the sister she lost, the love that never was, the hopes for the future that she couldn’t attain; all of these materialize in the deep shadows and shifting portrait-eyes of Byrne Hall. Brooks has crafted a slow-simmering, psychological, gothic novel about grief and longing.”—Booklist
“Eerie, gripping, and macabre: a gothic romance for the contemporary age.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Shimmering, lush, with prose that beats at the heart, The Whispering House will keep you up all night. Elizabeth Brooks has written a gothic mystery like no other.” —Rene Denfeld, author of The Butterfly Girl