The House at Watch Hill
A Novel
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4.6 • 28 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning is back with a gripping, imaginative, and seductive new series in which a young woman moves to Divinity, Louisiana, to inherit a large fortune and a Gothic mansion full of mysteries and ominous secrets...
Zo Grey is reeling from the sudden death of her mother when she receives a surprising call from an attorney in Divinity, Louisiana, with the news she has been left an inheritance by a distant relative, the terms of which he will only discuss in person. Destitute and alone, with nothing left to lose, Zo heads to Divinity and discovers she is the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune and a monstrosity of a house that sits ominously at the peak of Watch Hill—but she must live in it, alone, for three years before the house, or the money, is hers.
Met with this irresistible opportunity to finally build a future for herself, Zo puts aside her misgivings about the foreboding Gothic mansion and the strange circumstances, and moves in, where she is quickly met by a red-eyed Stygian owl and an impossibly sexy Scottish groundskeeper.
Her new home is full of countless secrets and mystifying riddles, with doors that go nowhere, others that are impossible to open, and a turret into which there is no visible means of ingress. And the townspeople are odd…
What Zo doesn’t yet know is that her own roots lie in this very house and that in order to discover her true identity and awaken her dormant powers, she will have to face off against sinister forces she doesn’t quite comprehend—or risk being consumed by them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Witches and female empowerment are the focus of Moning's heavy-handed latest (after the Fever series). Zodeckymira "Zo" Grey has spent the last several years caring for her dying mother at the expense of both her personal and professional life. Zo is used to this kind of liminal existence, however. When she was growing up, they moved from town to town, with no answers from her mother as to why. After tragedy strikes during a job interview, Zo finds herself suddenly homeless—until she learns that a wealthy, unknown relative has left her a fortune. Whisked away to Divinity, La., Zo discovers a side of the family her mother was keeping from her and a legacy of magic she was never allowed to explore. The town is idyllic, but the house Zo has inherited is foreboding, and she has enemies who want her gone before her burgeoning magic can fully manifest. The lack of subtlety in Zo's coming-of-power narrative frustrates, with Moning holding the reader's hand every step of the way. Still, plentiful magic and eventual romance will please fans of urban fantasy who aren't looking for anything too challenging.
Customer Reviews
Witchy mystery
Well written and fast paced.
A good introduction to the series…
As soon as I saw that there was a new book by Karen Marie Moning, I dropped everything that I was doing and instantly bought and read the book. I already loved her Fever series and wanted to see what other worlds and characters she would create.
However, I do have to admit that not much happens in this book. Not much is answered, and the characters (other than the main one) are not really fully fleshed out. Prepare yourself for a lot (I mean a lot) of inner monologue. But I guess this is understandable as the main character has gone through a lot of confusing and life changing events.
I am really looking forward to the next book as this one ended on a delicious cliffhanger. I hope the next instalment will have more plot progression and more interactions between the characters.