This is how I come to kill my father. It begins like this.
The Girl From Rawblood is a historical Gothic thriller following several intertwined families which seem to be cursed. It jumps back and forth in time and from character to character, but is never confusing and is always intensely engaging. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, because so much of the fun is discovering how the pieces fit together and seeing what happens next. I will say that it involves a mansion which is haunted by... something.
It's one of the best books I've read this year. After I read Ward's Sundial and then The Last House on Needless Street,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cahn and I read this together, starting chapters at the same time and chatting on messenger.
This was extremely fun and at some point we will do it again with Little Eve, which is the last Catriona Ward book we haven't read yet. I loved her other two books, but I loved Rawblood the most.
It has a very timeless feel; a lot of it could have been written in any era of Gothics and ghost stories, though it's more graphically violent than would have been written in the 1800s, and involves explicit rather than implicit queerness.
It has approximately three shocking twists per chapter. It's a Gothic which packs in every possible Gothic trope you can imagine. But it's not just about twists. There are multiple narrators, all very well distinguished and most narrated in a very individual style. Ward did an amazing job not only of differentiating them, but of getting me emotionally invested in almost every single character. It's also an extremely emotional book.
Some of it is very difficult to read. There are cruel experiments on rabbits, including a passage which I skipped entirely once I saw where it was going. There's also an extremely upsetting section set in an insane asylum, which is even more awful than you might imagine.
But it isn't all horror. Terrible things happen to the characters, and many of them do terrible things, but almost always out of love; often misguided or twisted or obsessional love, but love nonetheless. In an afterword which is well worth reading, Ward says that she doesn't pity her characters because she feels that they lived full emotional lives and loved and were loved, which is the best that anyone can hope for.
Though much of the book is tragic, I didn't find it depressing, other than in certain specific sections. It's more of a wild, intense ride. I found the ending very moving and, depending on your interpretation and perspective, hopeful and satisfying.
Now let's talk about the twists. Seriously don't click on the cut if you intend to read this book.
I was convinced for most of the book that Shakes was an immortal and possibly a vampire. By the time we last see him, he must be at least 100. People do live to be 100 naturally, but I find it suspicious that Ward carefully mentions that after Rawblood burned down, his body was never found and he was presumed dead. That is a classic trope of someone who is not in fact dead.
Tom and Iris found other offerings on the altar when they went in the cave, so other people must have made wishes and presumably had them granted in a monkey's paw manner. My theory is that Shakes wished to be immortal, but forgot to add eternally youthful and healthy.
The reveal that Iris was her was absolutely gutwrenching. The terrible impact of her was not because she was malicious, though she did have malicious moments (understandably!) but because she had been treated so cruelly. The horror was of suffering, not of evil.
Her meeting with Meg, the one person who didn't fear her, was so moving. So was her final meeting with Tom and that he was able to lay her to rest. I interpret the final paragraph is hopeful, in that she doesn't stay a ghost, but moves on to wherever souls go. The imagery is all of light.
My favorite shocking twist was the reveal that Iris had been dead all along. When she was riding in the train, it was accompanying her own coffin, and the coffin she saw with Tom was her own. It's very classic ghost story.
I am now completely obsessed with Catriona Ward. I look forward to reading Little Eve and her book that's forthcoming next year.
Content notes: EVERYTHING. Animal harm and cruel experimentation, cruel treatment of people in historical mental asylums, child abuse, violence, rape, miscarriages/stillbirths, probably more things I'm forgetting.
The Girl From Rawblood is a historical Gothic thriller following several intertwined families which seem to be cursed. It jumps back and forth in time and from character to character, but is never confusing and is always intensely engaging. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, because so much of the fun is discovering how the pieces fit together and seeing what happens next. I will say that it involves a mansion which is haunted by... something.
It's one of the best books I've read this year. After I read Ward's Sundial and then The Last House on Needless Street,
cahn and I read this together, starting chapters at the same time and chatting on messenger.This was extremely fun and at some point we will do it again with Little Eve, which is the last Catriona Ward book we haven't read yet. I loved her other two books, but I loved Rawblood the most.
It has a very timeless feel; a lot of it could have been written in any era of Gothics and ghost stories, though it's more graphically violent than would have been written in the 1800s, and involves explicit rather than implicit queerness.
It has approximately three shocking twists per chapter. It's a Gothic which packs in every possible Gothic trope you can imagine. But it's not just about twists. There are multiple narrators, all very well distinguished and most narrated in a very individual style. Ward did an amazing job not only of differentiating them, but of getting me emotionally invested in almost every single character. It's also an extremely emotional book.
Some of it is very difficult to read. There are cruel experiments on rabbits, including a passage which I skipped entirely once I saw where it was going. There's also an extremely upsetting section set in an insane asylum, which is even more awful than you might imagine.
But it isn't all horror. Terrible things happen to the characters, and many of them do terrible things, but almost always out of love; often misguided or twisted or obsessional love, but love nonetheless. In an afterword which is well worth reading, Ward says that she doesn't pity her characters because she feels that they lived full emotional lives and loved and were loved, which is the best that anyone can hope for.
Though much of the book is tragic, I didn't find it depressing, other than in certain specific sections. It's more of a wild, intense ride. I found the ending very moving and, depending on your interpretation and perspective, hopeful and satisfying.
Now let's talk about the twists. Seriously don't click on the cut if you intend to read this book.
I was convinced for most of the book that Shakes was an immortal and possibly a vampire. By the time we last see him, he must be at least 100. People do live to be 100 naturally, but I find it suspicious that Ward carefully mentions that after Rawblood burned down, his body was never found and he was presumed dead. That is a classic trope of someone who is not in fact dead.
Tom and Iris found other offerings on the altar when they went in the cave, so other people must have made wishes and presumably had them granted in a monkey's paw manner. My theory is that Shakes wished to be immortal, but forgot to add eternally youthful and healthy.
The reveal that Iris was her was absolutely gutwrenching. The terrible impact of her was not because she was malicious, though she did have malicious moments (understandably!) but because she had been treated so cruelly. The horror was of suffering, not of evil.
Her meeting with Meg, the one person who didn't fear her, was so moving. So was her final meeting with Tom and that he was able to lay her to rest. I interpret the final paragraph is hopeful, in that she doesn't stay a ghost, but moves on to wherever souls go. The imagery is all of light.
My favorite shocking twist was the reveal that Iris had been dead all along. When she was riding in the train, it was accompanying her own coffin, and the coffin she saw with Tom was her own. It's very classic ghost story.
I am now completely obsessed with Catriona Ward. I look forward to reading Little Eve and her book that's forthcoming next year.
Content notes: EVERYTHING. Animal harm and cruel experimentation, cruel treatment of people in historical mental asylums, child abuse, violence, rape, miscarriages/stillbirths, probably more things I'm forgetting.
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and the eventual revelation and resolution just hit so hard on an emotional level.
THIS!
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(Lol, that made me think, I suppose that Maria Theresa really just wanting to be a little wife giving Franz Stefan the Emperorship to make up for Lorraine does count as a bonkers plot twist! Though different in a much more headdesk-y way! I did enjoy doing that with salon, but... wow.)
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Terrible things happen to the characters, and many of them do terrible things, but almost always out of love; often misguided or twisted or obsessional love, but love nonetheless.
You know, I think this was a major reason that I loved this book. That everyone did act out of love, and that Ward has so much compassion for everyone. (Except insane asylum guy, HE needed to die in a fire. But, like, even though I think that, I think it says something that he didn't, actually -- it connects directly to your line about what the horror was and was not.) And augh, everything you say in your spoiler section! And I really was attached to all the characters in a way that I wasn't (or maybe didn't allow myself to be because of the structure of the horror?) as much in Sundial or Needless, even though I really enjoyed both of those books.
(also, I am still laughing about ~moral degradation~, I was not expecting that!)
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