I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Gideon Bliss is called home urgently to see his uncle. Being an orphan and having a distant relationship with his uncle, this is a surprise to him. He hurries from Cambridge to London to see what the summons is about. Once there, he finds not his uncle, but rather the wise cracking Det Cutter he promptly accompanies him to the scene of a suicide at Lord Stratham’s Mayfair home. A seamstress has jumped from an upper window.

And then there is Octavia, the budding journalist. She is tasked with attending high society events to report but dreams of the more important stories she would rather write. She begins to investigate what has happened with Lord Stratham as well.

This book had a lot of interesting characters and the writing was sublime. The mystery was interesting and well written. The only drawback for me was the supernatural element which I do not usually enjoy, but yet this book used it pretty well.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC. This is an author I will definitely read again and hope for more with Sergeant Bliss. There is so much potential here.

An eerie and unsettling police drama unlike anything else in the genre. Historical and lots of fun to read. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed listening to this gothic, historical mystery. Immediately I thought there was a kind of Dickensian vibe about the story as we follow seemingly unrelated characters though some of the darker parts of London, then watch as their narratives begin to connect.

The three main characters helped keep my attention throughout the intricately plotted story.

I really enjoyed the author's prose and plan to find other works by him.

I love mysteries set in the Victorian era. I liked how this book switched between two main characters with converging storylines. I liked the fantastical element to it. I liked all the characters in it. I liked how it was told and how the mystery unfolded slowly, and unpredictably. I adore British mysteries. It was a very enjoyable read. I would give it 4.5 stars.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

I did not finish this read. The story did not hold my interest. The writing was good, but I did not care about the story.

Overall The House on Vesper Sands was an entertaining mix of historical crime fiction and sensational novel.

The first chapter was absolutely spellbinding and completely drew me in - a seamstress is visiting a lord's house at night, ostensibly to complete some task that is distasteful to her, but it's clear that she has some hidden purpose during this particular visit. The descriptions of snow in this chapter were magical, and I was looking forward to more of this type of descriptive language in the rest of the book.

I didn't find the rest of the book quite as delightful and compelling as the first chapter (the only other sections that came close were the transcripts of Gideon's notes, which were very funny and charming). The remainder of the book alternates between Gideon, a student searching for his uncle, and Octavia, a society columnist, who are both investigating the same mystery, though their paths don't cross until the very end of the book. There is a small supernatural element to this mystery, which bothered me a bit, but overall this was an entertaining crime novel.

FIRST LINE: "In Half Moon Street, just as she came near to the house, Esther Tull felt the first gentleness of the snow."

THE STORY: On a snowy London evening during the dreary winter of 1893, mysterious and unpleasant events are taking place. A young woman makes a dreadful decision. A wealthy gentleman disappears. An impoverished divinity scholar seeks shelter in a church and discovers an incapacitated young woman. In the morning she is gone.

The scholar, Gideon, vows to find and rescue the girl. Happening upon Inspector Cutter, he passes himself off as police officer and he and the Inspector head off to investigate a string of missing young women.

Meanwhile Octavia Hillingdon, a reporter, is trying to convince her editor to let her stray from the women's page and follow up on the story of the missing young women.

WHAT I THOUGHT: The story unfolds slowly alternately introducing characters. Connections are not immediately obvious but make sense as the plot moves forward. A complicated tale but easy enough to follow.

Sherlockian in tone, the clever writing is amusing especially between 'Sergeant' Gideon and Inspector Cutter, but somewhere in the second half, the story seemed less of a piece and more of a mosaic of incidents. Still the mood created and the descriptive writing is definitely worth reading.

BOTTOM LINE: RECOMMENDED for those who love historical fiction, ghost stories, literate mysteries.

DISCLAIMER: A copy of The House on Vesper Sands was provided to me by Tin House Books/Net Galley for an honest review.

A delightful with entertaining characters and an immersive plot. This Victorian mystery will please a wide variety of readers with its dark details, humor, and supernatural elements.

I don’t give out 5 stars very often - but this book definitely deserves each and every one. From the first page to the last it is captivating and intriguing. It is a combination of gothic, mystery & paranormal with a little splash of humor. Each character was well developed and interesting with enough back story to make them familiar. I am usually good at determining “who dunnit” but this one kept me guessing until almost the end - when it becomes pretty obvious. I thought the partnership/friendship of “Wavy” and “Elf” was wonderfully written and I hoped that this might be the beginning of a great series. I am notorious for skipping whole pages when the pace slows down, and even though it did slow down, I loved the writing so much I didn’t skip a single word. Even the last few pages probably had more words than was needed but I loved them anyway. Have I gushed enough? Many thanks to NetGalley and Tin House (Publisher) for allowing me an ARC of this excellent book in exchange for an honest review.

Missing young women in Victorian London may seem like an overused trope but that didn’t stop Paraic O'Donnell from writing a new and innovative tale that pulls you in from page one. THE HOUSE ON VESPER SANDS has characters as vivid as those of Charles Dickens and a mystery worthy of the incomparable Sherlock Holmes.

Set in 1893 a seamstress has jumped out a window and is dead. She has a cryptic message sewn into her skin. How is she connected to a series of missing girls. This is how this Victorian gothic mystery starts. Along the way we meet some well written characters who are charming and witty. I like how the mystery unfolded and thought the ending was good. The narrative really felt like you were in gloomy dark times.

I was given an e-galley copy from the publisher on NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

My quarantine reading goal was to read every book I could from Tin House; I love the majority of their content but unfortunately this wasn’t my favorite.

Fans of Victorian London simply must read this book! It won’t be for everyone as it moves slowly, but the payoff is absolutely worth it! It is gruesome at times and I loved the mystery.

This historical mystery is set in Victorian London. It opens with a seamstress arriving at a fancy home for an undisclosed commission. It is very mysterious and ends with the seamstress throwing herself out of the window of the highest floor. When she is examined afterwards, she is found to have a message stitched into her body. This death turns out to be linked to a series of disappearances of young woman. The disappearances have both a sinister and a supernatural explanation. And the best part of the book is the three people who come to be investigating this.

Gideon Bliss is a young Cambridge student, summoned to London by his uncle and benefactor, who is also missing. Inspector Cutter is a gruff and jaded detective, who reluctantly teams up with Bliss to look for his uncle and Angela Tatten, a young woman that Bliss knows and who he discovers is among the missing. Along the way, they meet Octavia Hillingdon, a young lady of society who is also a journalist and who rides around London on her bicycle. The interplay between these likeable characters is well-done, with clever dialogue and heart. I especially liked the relationship between Bliss and Cutter and hope that this might be the start of a new series.

This is a historical mystery, with an element of Victorian gothic – including the spooky House on Vesper Sands. If you like the mysteries of Amanda Quick, Tasha Alexander, or Will Thomas – then, you would like this debut.

This isn’t your standard Victorian Gothic novel, part mystery, part fantasy. When a seamstress falls to her death a police investigation is launched and a newspaper woman, a theology student and a determined, brusque police detective are sent into a hunt for men who are turning women into ghosts. As I write this, my description doesn’t sound that appealing, but believe me, once the reader is enmeshed in the story line and the interesting set of characters, it turns into a compelling read. It is tense and well paced, and the quiet, almost monotone voices the narrator gave to some of the characters fit will.

I liked the sound of this gothic mystery,, but confess I found it a bit confusing. Perhaps it was the supernatural aspect of the story that I didn’t really understand. I liked some of the characters, and in particular the relationship between Inspector Cutter and Bliss.

Fans of literature set in Victorian times will love this mystery novel. With some fantasy elements thrown in, it is a unique read that I won't soon forget. I enjoyed the pacing and the reveal of the mystery at the end. And this must be the start of a series, so it will be interesting to see what happens to the characters next.

“The house was not large, for a family of such means, but its isolation gave a stark grandeur to its appearance. It rose from a promontory overlooking the dunes, and might have served at one time as a seaside villa. There was a faded elegance still about its arches and mullions, but it had fallen into neglect. Years of salt air had roughened its stonework, and its gables were discoloured by lichen and rust.”

This book was really fun; I enjoyed the plot, characters and writing style. It’s a clever, supernatural mystery set in 1893 London. A seamstress leaps to her death and other young women are disappearing, without much notice from Scotland Yard until Lord Strythe also goes missing. The disappearances lead to parallel investigations. The newspaper reporter, Octavia Hillingdon starts making inquiries, aided by her brother Georgie and her snide friend Elf, who has secret governmental connections. Gideon Bliss is a divinity student from Cambridge who is present at the disappearance of one of the women. “But she was staring past him, her scream a hoarse rasp as the rag was clamped to his mouth. He was slowing then, even as he began to struggle, clawing emptiness and breathing only the strange deep sweetness now, remembering nothing else. He saw her once more, as he was hauled up, the sense almost gone from things. He saw it, or thought he did. The brightness of her. The brightness of her, and then the dark.” Bliss manages to insinuate himself in the investigation by Inspector Cutter. They find more disappearances, deaths, visions and spiritualists.

Each of the three protagonists is intelligent and articulate. Cutter, in particular, has an amusingly sarcastic take on the proceedings. It also turns out that Cutter has a particular interest in the case. I loved Cutter and the somewhat prickly relationship he developed with Bliss. “And it’s only now comes out that when you found the same woman dead in the street, you shovelled her up and took yourself off to bed and did not trouble yourself to report the matter to Her Majesty’s police until this morning. I have never heard the likes of it. Bliss, have you ever heard the likes of it?” “There is not much, Bliss, that you do not know how to say. It is more in the shutting off of the valve that you are inclined to struggle.”

I hope there will be a sequel to this, but it was originally published in 2018 and there are no signs at this time that this will become a series. I listened to the audiobook and the narration by Charles Armstrong was excellent. He brought a lot of personality to the characters.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.