Spooktastic Review: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

In the spirit of Halloween, I knew I needed to finish at least one horror book before the end of October, and my search for lesbian horror led me to My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen. Reading the climax of this eerie and vivid ghost story on a rainy night before Halloween felt like it was meant to be.

The Spooktastic Reads event is hosted by Imyril at There’s Always Room for One More, Annemieke at A Dance With Books, Ariana at The Book Nook, Jorie Loves A Story, Lisa at Dear Geek Place. Spooktastic Reads is a casual spinnoff of Wyrd and Wonder celebrating spooky fantasy in honor of Halloween.

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Blurb

In a world where the dead can wake and walk among us, what is truly real?

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the only good thing in Roos’ life, which is filled with sordid backroom séances organized by her mother. That is, until wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop attends one of these séances and asks Roos to come live with her at the crumbling estate she inherited upon the death of her husband. The manor is unsettling, but the attraction between Roos and Agnes is palpable. So how does someone end up dead?

Roos is caught red-handed, but she claims a spirit is the culprit. Doctor Montague, a psychologist tasked with finding out whether Roos can be considered mentally fit to stand trial, suspects she’s created an elaborate fantasy to protect her from what really happened. But Roos knows spirits are real; she’s loved one of them. She’ll have to prove her innocence and her sanity, or lose everything.

Review of My Darling Dreadful Thing

• Format: ebook
• Pacing: slow
• Plot or character-driven: character driven
• Multiple POVs: kind of (one main POV, small excerpts from psychiatrist’s POV)
• Representation: sapphic couple, lesbian-coded main character

My Darling Dreadful Thing is a gothic horror story that explores the mystery of bog bodies in 1950s Netherlands. Though it’s undeniably creepy, Johanna van Veen claims it’s a story about love, and I can’t help but agree. Interestingly, most of the major plot events of My Darling Dreadful Thing were predictable, which only enhanced my unease while reading the book. I knew what was going to happen and dreaded what it would take to get there.

One of my favorite storytelling perspectives is an unreliable narrator, and I really appreciated how Veen portrays Roos in this role. Unreliable narrators place the emphasis on the storyteller and their experience, which helps deepen their character by inviting the reader to see the world from their eyes. All of their assumptions and perceptions are experienced by the reader. My Darling Dreadful Thing definitely emphasizes the importance and truthfulness of Roos’s story, even if some of the events did not happen exactly as she said. Her story is true to her, and that’s all that mattered.

Throughout Roos’s narrative, she explores her relationship to both her spirit companion, Ruth, and the mysterious Agnes Knoop. As Dr. Montague suggests, there are some romantic/sexual elements to Roos and Ruth’s relationship, but it’s not so easily defined as Roos and Agnes’s relationship. I found myself endeared to Ruth at parts of the story and afraid or angry with her in others, much like Roos. Ruth is fiercely protective of Roos, which helps her when she’s vulnerable to mama and other predatory adults, but Ruth’s possessive nature also holds Roos back when she’s ready to move on. I loved how complicated their relationship was. All that was certain was that Roos and Ruth were devoted to one another.

When we’re introduced to Agnes, we only see her from Roos’s perspective, which is blinded by her naïve desire. As we all learn when starting a new relationship, Roos soon discovers that Agnes and her life are not as perfect as she initially believed. I really enjoyed how Agnes’s character was unveiled and that the reader didn’t get to learn everything about her. After finishing the book, Agnes is the character I still have the most questions about.  

After finishing My Darling Dreadful Thing, I was so happy I chose to pick it up! It was the perfect amount of creepy and hopeful with deliciously vivid descriptions of the dead. I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes Crimson Peak (2015) or Turn of the Screw.

You’ll Like This Book if You Enjoy…

• Gothic horror/lesbian horror
• A slow-burn buildup of dread
• Ghost stories
• Unreliable narrators

Where to find My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

Have you read My Darling Dreadful Thing? Let’s chat in the comments!