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It's an old story, one we've seen before, no? A young woman, for one reason or another, goes to stay at a big, old house where some sort of bad thing has happened. In this case, maybe two murders, maybe two disappearances, maybe one of each. The house, naturally, is inhabited by some strange people and creepy/frightening goings on are not unusual.

Obviously, this "old story" often works and can be a lot of scary fun. The cover and inside blurbs promised a great read, using all sorts of words that attracted me--Gothic, absorbing, "mystery lover's delight", compelling. In truth, I should have been warned by the "stylish" and "literary magic" sort of comments. Well, here, I did not find scary fun. It was hard to figure out the motivations of the characters, no one of whom I really liked very much at all. So why read it? Well, at first I kept going, hoping for some of that magic and delight. Latter, I figured I had paid good money for it and decided to keep at it; sometimes I am stubborn. I will say that the ending was totally unexpected (at least by me) and that alone brought my rating from 2 stars to 3. And now, it will find a new home at the local library.