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A review by clozzersaurusrex
The Darlings of the Asylum by Noel O'Reilly
4.0
4⭐️ A thrilling, unsettling and all too real gothic tale that’s perfect for fans of The Mad Women’s Ball.
Happy Release Day and thank you so much to @hqstories for sending me a #gifted copy of this book in return for an honest review✨
As a fan of historical romances, especially the female characters who are spinsters that behave scandalously by the standards of society (the ones who have ambition and want to be more than just a mother and wife), Violet was all too familiar and likeable- definitely no ‘shrinking violet’.
What struck me most about this book was the realisation that Violet represents the sinister reality of what those romanticised heroines, the ‘obstinate headstrong’ girls that refused to conform, could have faced if they weren’t fictional creations.
O’Reilly did a great job of portraying Hillwood Grange as a dark and claustrophobic prison that was basically its own entity, governed by the law of Dr Rastrick and I could feel Violet’s panic as though I was committed in Hillwood Grange myself! Dr Rastrick was the most unsettling kind of villain and he felt real to me - he literally made my skin crawl and made me anxious as to what he would do next. The most terrifying thing about him was that his beliefs and the treatments he administered were all things that patients were subjected to in the real world and I felt like Dr Rastrick was really well written!
If you like gothic and historical fiction or enjoyed The Mad Women’s Ball i’d definitely recommend you give this a read.
Happy Release Day and thank you so much to @hqstories for sending me a #gifted copy of this book in return for an honest review✨
As a fan of historical romances, especially the female characters who are spinsters that behave scandalously by the standards of society (the ones who have ambition and want to be more than just a mother and wife), Violet was all too familiar and likeable- definitely no ‘shrinking violet’.
What struck me most about this book was the realisation that Violet represents the sinister reality of what those romanticised heroines, the ‘obstinate headstrong’ girls that refused to conform, could have faced if they weren’t fictional creations.
O’Reilly did a great job of portraying Hillwood Grange as a dark and claustrophobic prison that was basically its own entity, governed by the law of Dr Rastrick and I could feel Violet’s panic as though I was committed in Hillwood Grange myself! Dr Rastrick was the most unsettling kind of villain and he felt real to me - he literally made my skin crawl and made me anxious as to what he would do next. The most terrifying thing about him was that his beliefs and the treatments he administered were all things that patients were subjected to in the real world and I felt like Dr Rastrick was really well written!
If you like gothic and historical fiction or enjoyed The Mad Women’s Ball i’d definitely recommend you give this a read.