I initially picked up The Ghost of Glendale from NetGalley as I was intrigued by a ghost aspect in addition to a romance plot. Despite its 4-star average, I’d give this novel a three out of five-star rating, and that’s being a bit generous. I received a free copy of this book in return for a review, and all opinions expressed within are my own.
Miss Phoebe Marcham is humming through her life as a 24-year-old spinster, which doesn’t have much going on other than keeping track of her father and their estate. One day, while she’s taking her morning ride she runs into Duncan Armstrong, a friend of her neighbors, and ends up inviting him to look at her family’s statues. While showing him a statue of her ancestor Simon and his lover, who died under mysterious circumstances, Simon’s ghost comes to them to ask for help. In order to help Simon, they must solve a riddle, but the answer is harder to find than they think, and family obligations get in the way when Phoebe’s aunt and cousin come for an unexpectedly extended visit. Will they be able to help Simon?
I selected this novel because I was intrigued about a combination ghost-romance story, but the ghost aspect was quite disappointing, as was the romance. The writing was good but, as another review pointed out, it did seem to have a lot of dialogue that people wouldn’t normally say aloud. Concerning not saying things aloud, the most confusing part of the plot for me was Phoebe and Duncan’s communication with Simon.
I thought it was quite unrealistic that Simon manifested to Phoebe and Duncan only as a cold breeze, yet managed to tell them about the riddles they had to solve just by chilling the air. I also don’t understand how the riddles came about, especially in a physical form. Supposedly, someone in the family had to have created them about Simon, but if they created a whole riddle system with a solution, why not just put Simon to rest themselves? That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Finally, Simon’s resting place was so close to home (and another reviewer thought of this as well), why couldn’t he just have gone there himself? There are many logical questions with very few answers about The Ghost of Glendale.
The romance between Phoebe and Duncan should have been the main focus of the story, but it seemed as though the interactions with Phoebe’s family and friends were way more prevalent. Phoebe and Duncan have fairly fleeting interactions and somehow fall in love. I think we, as readers, could have had a much different experience with this book if it had focused more on Phoebe and Duncan and their interactions rather than Phoebe’s interactions with the people around her.
The characters in this book were also a little flat and weak; Duncan was more rounded as we dug into his past a little bit, but we didn’t learn much about Phoebe, her cousin, her neighbor, or anyone else beyond what was necessary to the story. I would have rather had more detail to make the characters seem more realistic.
The last fault I have with The Ghost of Glendale is that everything was engineered to wrap up so neatly. There weren’t any complications (aside from one in which Phoebe had her locket stolen, which added more to an already-overloaded storyline), which just seemed unrealistic. Somehow, Phoebe was married, her cousin was married, the hundreds-year family feud was resolved, Phoebe’s aunt changed into a sunny personality, and Duncan forgave his mother, all in one book! I feel that this book could have been unpacked and extended into a couple volumes to add the necessary detail and expansion on the characters that it so badly needed.
So, to conclude, it sounds like I thought this book was absolutely awful, but at least it was readable and the writing style was alright. I just didn’t think it made much sense as a whole and could have been unpacked to explore some things more deeply.