#Spooktober #BlogTour ‘The Restoration’ by J.H Moncrieff

About the book…

Inspired by the author’s overnight stay in a historical haunted house, The Restoration is a thrilling tale of intrigue, murder, and family secrets that refuse to stay buried.

It was the perfect opportunity…or so she thought. When Terri Foxworth is hired to spend a year restoring a crumbling manor house, she believes she’s hit the jackpot. She moves in with her young daughter and high hopes for the project’s success. As the restoration begins to go terribly wrong, she realizes dark forces won’t let her leave the house until its horrible secrets are revealed.

This job could very well be the death of her.

Hugest of thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the blog tour invite, and Flametree Press for the gifted review copy of ‘The Restoration’ which is out in hardcover and e-book from October 26!

This is the perfect season for a spooky read, and what better than this gothic thriller with supernatural undertones?

Terri and her daughter Dallas are trying to restore their relationship over the course of a summer, at the same time as trying to restore a cultural, and historic home, Glenvale, home of the Vandermere family. The last surviving member, Henrietta, has struggled to get anyone to stay and finish the job, unable to ascertain why the previous employees up and left, whilst she is unable to get rid of the one housekeeper who she hired , prior to Terri starting work.

Her ex-housekeeper, Gertrude, was fired and had her key taken off her, because she became ‘unhinged’, in that she was talking to people who were not there, and spread rumours that Henrietta’s father killed both her sister, Emma, and brother, Niles.

Terri has enough on her hands with a teen who is most likely, but not explicitly stated, as on the autistic spectrum. What should be a healing time, post her parent’s divorce, is quickly becoming a battlefield between Terri and Derek(plus new wife Trudy).

Terri is a fierce and feisty character who puts Dallas at the heart of everything she does, so when Dallas begins ‘seeing’ Niles, she assumes it is one of the actors Henrietta hired for re-enactments. But with an increasingly hostile employer, and being in desperate need of money, how far will Terri’s no nonsense attitude get her?

What I loved about this novel, was the complex nature of the relationship between mother and daughter, and how insular it can be at times. Terri is so focussed on not feeling a failure of a mother , that Dallas’ needs override her common sense, up till now, her greatest asset. Is Dallas just aiming for more attention? And why will Gertrude not leave the family alone? (more importantly, just how is she getting inside the house?)

Is Niles even real, or just a figment of Dallas’ imagination?

The creepy and uncertain nature of the tale has you gripped from the first page, you are really invested in seeing Dallas and Terri reach the final page and you are not entirely sure that they will. Whether it is ghosts, a disgruntled ex-employee playing games (like Mrs Danvers in Rebecca) is not really the point-you give yourself over to a writer who has written a book that includes only what is needed-there is no padding and no frills to distract from Glenvale.

It also shows how encompassing a house can be as an emblem of success, a part of history, and how, sometimes using your privilege to ensure that your name is remembered after your death, is merely building a monument to false perspectives.

About the author…

J.H. Moncrieff’s ‘City Of Ghosts’ won the 2018 Kindle Book Review Award for best Horror/Suspense.

Reviewers have described her work as early Gillian Flynn with a little Ray Bradbury and Stephen King thrown in for good measure.

She won Harlequin’s search for “the next Gillian Flynn” in 2016. Her first published novella, ‘The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave’, was featured in Samhain’s Childhood Fears collection and stayed on its horror bestsellers list for over a year.

When not writing, she loves exploring the world’s most haunted places, advocating for animal rights, and summoning her inner ninja in muay thai class.

Links-http://www.jhmoncrieff.com/