I’m doing my sixth review on the book The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman. All I have to say is wow. I give this book 5 stars. I was kind of skeptical about reading this book because I never heard of the author. She was a bestselling author however, so I gave her a chance. I’m really glad I did, because I loved this book.

So if you’re reading my blog and how I usually do my reviews I always reveal the book and the ending, so if you don’t want to know how the story ends don’t read my blog 🙂 Anyway let’s get started.

Okay so this book is about Clare and Jess Martin. They are a married couple from New York. Jess was a bestselling author and trying to work on his second novel, but he lost his inspiration so him and his wife Clare move to Clare’s old neighborhood of Concord. They decide to be caretakers to a wealthy old man who was also Clare and Jess’s professor in college.

Katrine, the realtor tells them that this was the perfect place to get inspiration. They see the cottage and they think it is perfect. It was a huge property with a side suite down the hill from where Mr. Montague was staying (who they’re taking care of). They were to stay in this small cottage and help restore the mansion for Mr. Montague. He wanted to make sure it was in working condition if and when he passed away.

So they move into the cottage and the first night there, Clare hears sounds. It sounded like a baby crying outside the cottage. She wakes up and goes outside, but doesn’t see a baby but actually a shadowy figure in the fog of the pond. Clare tries to run to the figure but it vanishes.

Clare heads back to the cottage where Jess is still sleeping. She doesn’t want Jess to think she is crazy. She did have a breakdown in the past because of having a miscarriage.

So the story is basically about Clare getting haunted at this house. She hears babies crying, sees shadowy figures, hears and bells ringing in the middle of the night. She thinks she’s gong crazy, but she is also writing a novel that maybe caused these hallucinations. She was inspired by Monty. She decided to dig up who she really was. She was adopted as a young baby, and never found out who her real parents were. She heard the rumors of the Apple Blossom Girl and Monty’s father Bayard. His father had an affair with this young girl while married to Minnie and she got pregnant. Both actually got pregnant at the same time.

Minnie found out about the young girl, but didn’t do anything about it. When the young girl had her baby she gave her baby to her sister and she gave it to Bayard, but he didn’t want the baby and he gave it to the maid. The young girl, whose name was Mary Foley, drowned in the frozen pond the night she had the baby. The rumor was that she was haunting the estate ever since. Minnie went crazy because she thought her baby was killed and her baby was swapped with Mary’s baby.

So with that said, now you get the gist of what the story is about. Clare finds out that she is Monty’s daughter with a previous student of Monty’s. She tells Monty and he is happy. The thing is though, is that strange things kept on happening. Clare seemed to be going crazy. The way the author captivated her character, made her seem like she was a little off the hinges.

As the story comes to a close, Clare realizes that Jess and Katrine were conspiring against her. She finds out that Jess and Katrine actually dated in the past. Since Monty found out that Clare was his daughter, he wrote her into his will to own the house called River House, but called Riven House because of all the hauntings. Jess and Clare’s marriage was not perfect at all, in fact it was bad. Really bad. So Jess and Katrine arranged to inherit money from Clare, by trying to kill her in a way that looked like accident.

Okay so this story is strange, the ending got me a little confused. So Clare thought this whole time that Katrine and Jess were conspiring against her, however, I don’t think that was the case at all. Jess was actually proud of his wife for writing such an amazing novel and Katrine was actually trying to get Jess and Clare to live in Clare’s old childhood home to get away from River House because she was losing her shit. Clare had this illusion that Katrine was actually the ghost of River House, trying to make her crazy. She was dead wrong.

CLIMAX!!

Clare saw Jess and Katrine go into Clare’s old home and spend a good hour in there. Clare sat there waiting for them to come out, but hid. Clare left upset, because she thought he was cheating on her and took off like a bat out of hell. She crashed her car and it flipped. It was freezing rain outside and Clare was inches from freezing to death, but she was able to get out of there. She raced back to the house on foot to tell Monty about Jess and Katrine’s plan to kill her. When she reached the house, she went into Monty’s room but he wasn’t there, but saw the pages of her manuscript on his desk. He was using her work to write his own novel. He saw her and he freaked out, he thought she was the ghost of the house and had a heart attack, and died. Clare confronted Jess about having the affair and Jess laughed it off. Clare got upset and the power went out. She grabbed a gun from Monty’s room and tried to leave the room, but Jess was holding her back. A tree flew into the window from the ice storm that was taking place outside. Clare was able to get free. She left the room but Katrine and Jess were able to get to her. She shot and killed Katrine. She ran away from Jess and he went into the pond and drown, but she did try and save him. She saw a ghost however, drag him down into the blackness.

So now you can choose what to believe. Was it really haunted or were Jess and Katrine conspiring with each other to kill Clare so they could inherit the house and the money?

I rate this story very high. I do love a good haunting/ghost story.

M.