Olivia was only 5 years old when she first noticed them. No one else at the Merilance School for Independent Girls seemed to see them at all. Mind you, it wasn’t like they were going to tell her. She was shunned by the other girls and teased for being mute, but the strange things she saw still followed her.

They were people of all ages, but made of shadows. They were never all there, with a shoulder missing or part of their arm. Olivia called them ghouls, and learned that if she looked directly at them they would fade into nothing again. She also knew that if she told anyone what she saw, they would think she was madder than they already did. Olivia was mute but she had a sharp mind, learning the habits of the teachers and how to outwit them. She also knew the school (asylum for the feral or unwanted) where she lived, inside and out.

Olivia would strike out in vengeance to those who wronged her, without any evidence left behind to prove it, and as she grew the other girls went from disliking her to being afraid of her. This suited Olivia perfectly, as being ignored by most, she could slink around the school without being noticed.

She’d been in the head teacher’s office many times over the years, but now at mid teens, she was summoned again. There was a letter. Addressed to her. Already opened by the head teacher, but still for her. It was saying a family called Pryor had been looking for her. She had a family.

The house she is taken to is called Gallant. It is grand. A palace. A dream come true. But her only living relative tells her to leave immediately. He didn’t write the letter and everyone else is dead. Olivia has a tough shell after years of ridicule and trouble at the school, and she is defiant now too. She won’t leave. Besides, she has nowhere else to go.

Olivia begins to learn about this house called Gallant. It was mentioned in a journal that was found with her as a baby on the school steps. The journal was her mother’s and she knows it by heart and cannot help thinking of the warning inside. It said she will be safe as long as she stayed away from Gallant.

This is the first VE Scwab novel I have read, and I savoured the beautiful writing within an eerie, atmospheric setting. Many people enjoy an orphanage story, focusing on one character and their wishes and woes. This plot line drew me in and I was soon as intrigued as the main character Olivia as she learns she will be free of the school/asylum she was abandoned in.

A haunted house is one thing, but Gallant is a whole lot more. It is chocka of ghouls all right, and many of them are from one family, but now there are only two members of Olivia’s family left. Her and her cousin Matthew. Learning what happened to the rest of her family tree was gripping and superbly creepy. The flow through of Olivia’s curiosity and defiance from the school she was raised in, to the house of her birthright, helps her find all the answers she seeks and more.

I thought I had figured the ending before it arrived, but I was wrong. I wished for so much more for Olivia, but she is strong and determined and a force to be reckoned with. The demon next door learns the hard way, but there is no predictable ending here.

I’ll definitely look out for more creepy stuff by this author.

Author – V E Schwab

Age – 13+

(2023, New South Books, Creepy, Ghosts, Ghouls, Demon, Death, House, Mansion, Birthright, Prior, Pryor, Family, Mystery, Journal, Eerie, Spooky, Orphanage, School, Asylum, Unwanted, Feral, Bullying, Teasing, Sisters, Nuns, Matching houses, Mirror image, Good vs Evil, Fantasy, Historical, Horror)