Title: Eventide
Author: Sarah Goodman
Series: n/a
A good debut!
I would like to thank Sarah Goodman, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was pretty good! It was paced and structured well, and while I didn’t particularly like Verity, she was a strong, independent character whom I certainly cared about and wanted things to work out for. I think what I mostly disliked about her was that apparently every time someone told her to stay out of the woods, she decided it was opposite day. That’s classic TSTL (too stupid to live) protagonist behavior. Other than that, though, she was a decent protag.
I loved that Hetty and Big Tom turned out to be sweeties, and Abel was an okay love interest. I’m not sure I liked Lilah much, but I’m not sure I disliked her, either; it’s hard to know how I felt about her when she was being manipulated up, down, and sideways.
I was tempted to kneel before Della, who never seemed to experience a negative emotion. No, that’s inaccurate; who never let her negative emotions poison her attitude. She was jealous of Verity and Abel, for instance, but she decided she valued their friendship too much to be bitter and angry, so she was happy for them instead. She also seemed fully aware that her dad was a jackass, yet she didn’t seem to hold it against him.
I had mixed emotions regarding Matthew. On the one hand, he had a good heart and wanted nothing but to help those he loved, but he was stymied at every turn. On the other, this entire book—their entire lives—could have been very different if he’d just found a way to speak with Mary after being lambasted by her father, instead of just running off to New York. He’d loved Mary soooooo much, yet turned tail the moment the going got tough? I wish he’d had more of a chance to redeem himself and get his head right; his fate was far from satisfying.
Miss Maeve was a pretty great villain. No—actually, she was excellent. I had major sympathy for her at the same time I hated and feared her. She was entirely a victim of people who were supposed to love her yet hurt her again and again by making decisions for her. Like Verity, I’m not sure I can blame her for going mad and becoming vindictive after she discovered she couldn’t die, that even that choice had been stolen from her. It’s no wonder she became somewhat power hungry. In the end, though, her demise was pretty satisfying, both because she had been defeated and because she had also been released from the cursed life she’d been leading. Yes, she was a very skillfully written antagonist. Probably the strongest element of the book.
I’m not sure how much purpose Jasper and—crap, what’s her name…the bitch who wanted to leave Wheeler so bad…his sister, at any rate—I’m not sure how much purpose they served, they seemed rather superfluous. Jasper more than his sister. Also, what point was there to Abel’s pregnant sister? That thread went no where and did nothing except perhaps demonstrate that Verity might have been a great doctor one day. The little girl ghost also didn’t seem to serve much purpose; I don’t remember her name, either. She helped guide Verity and Matthew to the well in the end, but other than that, her only other job was to be spooky and mysterious. I love me some spooky and mysterious, but not without purpose. Reminds me of a couple of the ghosts in Simone St. James’s Sun Down Motel. If any of the above had purpose that I was ignorant to, apologies and disregard.
Speaking of, Goodman did an okay job injecting the atmosphere with spooky and mysterious. It wasn’t keep-the-lights-on creepy, but she described some unnerving imagery, and I really felt Miss Maeve’s unhinged malice in the second half.
The magic-ish elements, such as the charms and the hollow? Meh. Not super fascinating, but they added some mystical to the spooky and mysterious, which isn’t a bad combination. A lot of it was rather cliche, though—the forbidden wood, the fog, a well (what the hell is it about wells?), a place of concentrated energy, even very loosely basing it all on Irish lore. The trapping charm was somewhat unique, though, at least to me, as was the concept that the charm combined with the well’s magic “sustained” Miss Maeve.
I think I understood the explanations for everything… Well, no, I still have questions. Why did Lizzie put a trapping spell on Mary? Why had she been so afraid of Mary going beyond a 15-mile radius? The reason was probably there and I missed it, because it would be really odd to not explain that—to not explain the one pivotal factor that turned Mary’s tragedy into a plot. Also, didn’t Matthew say something about evil taking two of his children and coming after the other two? Was that him being legit crazy, or again, did I miss something? Was the banker dude somehow responsible for the deaths of Elizabeth and the baby boy? Okay, so sorting fact from fiction is a bit tough, and some of the explanations are weak, but the biggest questions were answered.
Overall, this was a solid piece of work and a decent ghost story. Goodman could perhaps work on giving her leads a touch more charisma, strengthening the whys and hows, and making sure everything and everyone in the story serves a purpose within the plot.
Oh, and how beautiful is that cover art? Love it!
