The Wives of Herrick Hall was the sapphic haunted house story I needed. Its atmosphere is eery, mysterious, even oppressive at times, and yet elegant. Everything that is needed to craft a wonderful gothic novel is present, and I loved every moment of it. The growth of the relationship between Josephine and Nora (which is as sweet as it is intense) was also very well done, and although Nora didn't catch my heart at first, she quickly grew on me and by the end I was caring for her very much so.

I only wish we got to delve into the stories of the side characters a bit more, as I'm all for the "what happened here" of things and I feel like those subplots deserved more exploration than they got. I also saw someone say that men in this book were scarier than the ghosts, and I can't think of a better way of putting it. The author does indeed an excellent job at conveying (and critiquing) the position of women of society and the importance of keeping appearances, and the messages are clear while never being heavy-handed.

Overall a fantastic debut. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a powerful gothic sapphic love story with a backdrop of supernatural, and I will be looking forward to Julie Lew's next book that comes out later this year.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Quill & Crow Publishing House for the ARC of this book! All opinions are my own.

Écrire Mazan est l'un de ces rares livres qui est intéressant autant sur le fond que sur la forme grâce au travail sur sa mise en page qui nécessite un livre physique. Au-delà de ça, j'ai énormément apprécié lire les notes d'Élise Costa et la mise en avant de son processus d’écriture. Elle nous permet de mieux comprendre certaines tournures de phrases, l’ordre dans laquelle certaines choses sont abordées, et de ce fait la lecture de l'article final n'en est que meilleure.

J'ai lu juste avant le mémoire de Gisèle Pelicot, et Écrire Mazan en est un excellent complément : là où Et la joie de vivre se concentrait plus sur Gisèle et sa vie (comme on en attend d'un mémoire), Écrire Mazan lui met l’accent sur l’enquête et le procès en eux-mêmes, et s’intéresse également aux autres souvent non mentionnés de cette affaire effarante (policiers et avocats notamment).

Tout est raconté avec brio et il est impossible de poser le livre malgré le caractère lourd du sujet. À lire absolument.

The Memory Theater is a whimsical yet odd story that is very reminiscent of a dark fairytale. It contains a lot of unique ideas that may appeal to certain readers and is overall well-written, but the more detached prose made it a bit difficult for me to get fully immersed in the story. I did enjoy the world, the characters (Augusta is a great unhinged fae-villain), as well as the concept of the world parallel to ours itself, but I have to admit that sometimes the way the story was conveyed did not do it for me.

I would recommend it if you're looking for an unusual and cruel fairytale-like story. It's an easy read and it did its job at entertaining me the whole way through, but the world and its characters also somehow felt incomplete (or unexplored?), which kinda made me feel disconnected from the plot. Still a strong 3.5 stars.