It’s almost August, which means it’s almost fall, and that means it’s practically Halloween season! And we at THP are fully prepared to recommend your next spooky novel: Erin A. Craig’s House of Roots and Ruin.
House of Roots and Ruin is a Gothic thriller fantasy that’s the second installment of the Sisters of the Salt series. Although, you won’t need to read the first novel to enjoy this one!
Erin A. Craig’s latest Gothic novel follows the youngest Thaumas sister, Verity. And we don’t know how to explain the rollercoaster of emotions we went through while reading this book. Here are three reasons we couldn’t put down House of Roots and Ruin!
Book Overview:
Content Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, death, murder, torture, gore (Read at your discretion!)
Summary: In a manor by the sea, one sister is still cursed.
Despite dreams of adventures far beyond the Salann shores, seventeen-year-old Verity Thaumas has remained at her family’s estate, Highmoor, with her older sister Camille, while their sisters have scattered across Arcannia.
When their sister Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem—wife of a celebrated botanist—is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance, but Camille won’t allow it. Forced to reveal the secret she’s kept for years, Camille tells Verity the truth one day: Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it.
Stunned, Verity flees Highmoor that night and—with nowhere else to turn—makes her way to Bloem. At first, she is captivated by the lush, luxurious landscape and is quickly drawn to charming, witty, and impossibly handsome Alexander Laurent. And soon, to her surprise, a romance … blossoms. But it’s not long before Verity is plagued with nightmares, and the darker side of Bloem begins to show through its sickly-sweet façade …
The Gothic Elements
If you’re drawn to dark and deeply unsettling stories, we bet Erin A. Craig’s House of Roots and Ruin will quickly become your new favorite Gothic novel. We start strong with Verity Thaumas’s supernatural ability to see ghosts but her simultaneous inability to distinguish them from humans. When she arrives at the Laurent family mansion in Bloem, everything seems too good to be true. We can tell something is off about the family and the Gothic house. But we don’t find out until the final chapters when the Gothic house gets cleansed. (Or so we think!)
All The Secrets
Who doesn’t love a house with endless mysteries and secret passageways? House of Roots and Ruin keeps us on our toes from beginning to end. Much like Verity, we don’t know who to trust. We don’t even know who’s a ghost and who’s human. While we’re proud to say some of our predictions turned out correct, we were not prepared to discover the disturbing truth behind the duke’s greenhouse experiments. And like any good thriller, every clue seems unassuming when we read it, yet obvious in retrospect.
The Twist Ending
You would not believe the illegal cliffhanger that House of Roots and Ruin leaves us with. We screamed. There were so many clues we failed to see! And we should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy to get a happily-ever-after in a Gothic novel. The last sentence has us already imagining how the next installment will go. And the epilogue only confirms the impending struggle. We wish we could say more, but it’s too good an ending to spoil!
Erin A. Craig’s brilliant new Gothic tale transports us to the poisonous gardens and winding corridors of Chauntilalie, a place filled with unending horrors and deeply buried family secrets that leaves us questioning every instinct!
House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig has quickly climbed our list of top spooky reads, and we can’t wait for its release on July 25th. Here’s where to preorder!
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