*The Lodger*, by Helen Scarlett, weaves a intricate narrative amidst the shadows and melancholy of London, 1919. In this city of ghosts and absences, Grace Armstrong, still haunted by the loss of her fiancé in the war, sees her grief take on darker hues.
The story unfolds as Grace's fiancé begins to reappear, not only in her dreams but also in her everyday life. What might seem like a blessing turns into a disquieting enigma. Tension mounts when a body is pulled from the Thames, identified as Elizabeth Smith, Grace's former lodger who had disappeared abruptly.
Elizabeth was not just a tenant; she was an intimate friend to Grace. The protagonist, driven by compulsive desire, embarks on the journey to unravel the obscure circumstances of Elizabeth's death. However, this quest reluctantly leads her into the sordid and dangerous underbelly of London, revealing a scandal that shook Edwardian society.
The plot, laden with mystery, immerses readers in a dark academia atmosphere, where secrets are kept in the shadows, and the truth hides in the dark corridors of the past. Helen Scarlett skillfully weaves a web of twists, unveiling an intricate story that resonates in society and its characters.
*The Lodger* is not just an engaging historical novel; it is a deep dive into the dark layers of the human psyche, where the quest for answers may lead to losing oneself. A devastating reveal and a tangled web that will linger in memory, this work delivers a unique dark academia experience.
My thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for providing an advanced copy of this book, offering an immersive journey into the heart of Helen Scarlett's mysterious and melancholic London.

Creepy and atmospheric, a great novel.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

So, this is one of those books. You know the sort, the ones that start out with a bang and then, somehow, petered out.
I totally loved this one all through the first half. It sounded so realistic. The historical setting was spot on - if a bit expositional in places. There was Elisabeth's mystery: she appeared to have been a very different person before she went lodging with Grace and her family, and I wanted to know whether she had changed or whether she was a misunderstood woman. There was the WWI tread, where Grace kept seeing her husband around the city, and it could have been her hallucinating, but maybe...
And there were mysterious, unsettling dreams Grace was having about the war. There was also a thread concerning Grace's mother that was very very mysterious in the first part of the book.
I was so totally intrigued and desperate to learn how things stood.

Then, more or less halfway through, I don't know why, I thought, "Are we sure the author will be able to bring this mystery home?"
Maybe I sensed something. Maybe I subconsciously saw clues in the text, but right after that, things started to fall apart.
Most of the mysteries of the story turned out to be not really mysteries.
Grace's mother is a perfect example: there was, after all, no mystery there, and in fact, that thread unravelled in a very uninspiring way. The same happened to all the others. The dreams, for example, which I was so desperate to learn what meant, turned out to mean basically nothing. They were just nightmares.

It was so very disappointing.

The mystery, in the end, wasn't bad. It also made sense. But I felt that, with all the other things going on, it didn't receive the space and emotions it deserved, and therefore, it turned out to be disappointing too.

It was a book with a great concept and with very ambitious aspirations. Personally, I think that if it had been executed more skillfully, it would have been smashing.
Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Fantastic historical fiction with a slight gothic spin. Loved the determination and independence of our heroine Grace, who proves all wrong that she can solve the case of her missing friend. A friend with a mysterious and murderous past.

Thought it was very easy reading and the post Great War London setting was very well done!

Really well researched, but just not for me. I didn't feel pulled in, and the pacing was a little slow. Objectively well written, just not in a way that engaged me.

A gothic mystery that completely absorbed ne right from the very beginning. It was creepy and atmospheric with a suspenseful and mysterious story line. Really enjoyable

A gothic mystery, set in the aftermath of WWI, yes please! The premise of this book had my intrigued and whilst I find it a little slower in pace I did enjoy the atmosphere that was created. Grace is a character that you can't help but grow to love. I admired her strength and determination throughout the story and wanted to uncover the mystery of Elizabeth just as much as Grace.

I did find the romance element wasn't necessarily needed in this story. Don't get me wrong I loved Tom but I was quite happy to stick with the mystery side.

An atmospheric and beautiful story!

[dnf at 35%]

If the publisher can give me a single example of what makes this book differ from any other historical murder mystery with a two-word title that starts with "The...", I will gladly pick it up again and even pay for the experience.

I love the cover design and the blurb sounds appealing. However, I found the story rather confused; did it want to be a ghost story, a romance or an investigative mystery? Some parts work really well. The flashes of ghost like appearances of a fiancé missing in action in the First World War are well recounted. There’s a sense of drama and loss mixed with hope. The effects of grief are explored and felt very real. The book starts well. There’s a cast of characters who are, at times, a little stereotypical,but they give some flavour to the tale. After a while, the pace seemed to slow and I didn’t enjoy the romance element at all. It seemed interminable and I started to skip pages.

It’s well written but for me less enjoyable than I’d anticipated.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

London, just after WWI, and the city and its inhabitants are trying to get back to some normalcy, but are grappling with profound loss and societal changes. It is with this background that a young woman, Grace Armstrong, is trying to find the family of their former lodger who committed suicide. As she tugs along, she gets more and more suspicious that her death was in fact murder.

What I really liked is the description of post war London, even if it reminded me very much of Downton Abbey. The characters could just have been taken from this grand house to the slightly more family home of Ryedale Villa. And the pacing and escapism reminded me of "All creatures, great and small". However, midway through I found the pacing to become very slow and more and more emphasis was put on romance which is just something I don't like in mysteries.

All in all very well written, and if the mystery would have been more appealing and a little less romance, it would have made a a perfect read.

Many thanks to Quercus Books, NetGalley and the author for ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was drawn to the cover design, and the title intrigued me.

This was a shortish read, and a good historical mystery. It also had a Gothic sort of feel, and felt like a ghost story. The characters interested me, and I would be interested to know if there was going to be a sequel featuring some of these characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

This is a historic mystery following Grace, a young woman who is desperate to find answers after her lodger, Elizabeth, disappears. Set just after the World War, we also get an insight into the devasting effects it caused to those who fought, and to those who lost loved ones. The history is well researched, and the characters and settings seem accurate to the time period. The writing style is reminiscent of a gothic novel, which made this a very atmospheric read. Not only is the plot surrounding the mystery of Elizabeth, but it also touches upon the grief Grace is enduring after losing her fiance in the trenches. We are haunted by the grief of a tragic love and ghosts from the past that had long been silenced. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect with the characters as I felt they lacked depth and personality, but I was so intrigued by the plot and the way we are drip fed little cIues throughout, that I still really enjoyed reading this book.

In the wake of the First World War, Grace is struggling to come to terms with losing her fiancé and brother. Things take a drastic turn when a body is pulled from the Thames and it’s the body of Elizabeth Smith, Grace’s friend and former lodger.

Grace becomes obsessed with Elizabeth’s death and will find out what happened to her - no matter what. She enlists the help of Tom, a former soldier and friend of her late brother who is struggling after returning from France alive but injured.

The story follows Grace as she put together the truth of what happened to Elizabeth and confronts the ghosts of both her past - and present.

This is an eerie, gothic tale that keeps you guessing - I really enjoyed it. The pace is quite slow but the story kept my attention the whole time, and as things start to unravel it became a totally addictive read.

Set in 1919, in post war London, this book may have a mystery to solve but it's focus is how the war affected those who fought and those who were left behind. The war is front and centre in this novel and the exploration of how people dealt with the consequences of war and loss was very interesting. That said, I was definitely looking for a little more in terms of character. The characters at times felt quite flat with little nuance. I was unsure about the motivation behind some of the characters actions and, perhaps it says more about my character, but I needed a little more darkness.

The ending also left me wanting a little more. I am a reader that is more than happy to have unresolved threads that I can think on and ponder well after a book has ended but there were too many here that really came to nothing.

An interesting tale of post war London but was let down by some one dimensional characters and plotlines.

I received this copy from Net Galley and these are my own thoughts and views.

This was my first Helen Scarlett novel and I will certainly look out her first and any subsequent novels.
It's a slow burner that reminds me of Dear Mrs Bird (not a bad thing at all), and I always enjoy novels set at or near WW2 and this gothic murder mystery didn't disappoint.
Elizabeth's story had me hooked and the protagonist, Grace, was very well drawn, as well the supporting cast of characters.
Anyone into historical fiction with a mystery element will enjoy this.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We're on familiar ground here: the desolate post-WW1 London landscape, full of losses and ghosts. The Lodger is a readable, slightly predictable (you can see the love interest coming from the first scene) revisit, and as such it's not madly memorable but well worth reading.

I am a big fan of historical fiction and I really enjoyed this. I thought it was a well written atmospheric novel that is not overly plot heavy. The book is based on the afternath or war and grief and how different peope.manage that. I absolutely loved the characters and thought they were really inetresting and fun although, like other reviewers, I myself didn't find the romance part of the novel to be of interest or resonating.

I love historical novels and was attracted to the synopsis because of this. A mysterious lodger with secrets turns up dead, in a traumatised post WW1 society that doesn't seem to care.

The novel is very character driven, and some of them were very cliched. The lazy, superstitious Irish maid, and the glamourous cocktail drinking American socialite Bunty,. who was a bit of comic relief, but a cliché never the less.

The Lodger starts of well but somewhere after the half way mark it loses is way, and I found at the end the novel was dragging.

Its a three star read and thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC, I did finish the novel just found myself strangely relieved that I got the end.

I really enjoyed the beginning of "The Lodger" by Helen Scarlett. Set in post-war London, Grace is suffering the after effects of the Great War: her fiancé is MIA, various family members perished in the war and she has an ok job at Nursing World but dreams of being a real journalist. She is dragged into the mystery of the body found in the Thames which turns out to be a former lodger in her family home and as she starts to investigate she is wrapped into the seedy world of Lizzy, who turns out to be a completely different person than she thought. I really liked the parts where she kept seeing Robert (her fiancé who went missing in the war) and you can imagine this must have happened to many women after the war ended, especially when you didn't know whether they were alive or dead. The romance section was ok but I did find the story kind of dragged on and after a while it lost the impact that it had at the beginning.

A slow burn atmospheric historical novel. It handles grief and how everyone copes with it different. There are some twists along the way and you really feel sad for some of the characters. Luckily it ends on an hopefull note. The romance part was predictable, but overall an entertaining read.

I got this arc in exchange for an honest review.