The Ghost of Shapley Hall
The Ghost of Shapley Hall
By Amy Cross
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
This one is a little different in that it is told in first person POV. There are not many characters to deal with here. We have our story teller, James. Then there is Rachel, who’s family owns the home. Lastly there is Lizzy who we see twice but her role is pretty pivotal.
Let us start with Lizzy. She is a childhood friend of Rachel’s. Someone that she has not seen for over a decade. She seems like a really nice person. Happy to see her friend after all these years. She also shines a light on Rachel’s behavior for James. Unfortunately it also makes him go back to the house but It's Lizzy that brings Rachel’s unknown history to the front.
Now James, who seems like a good bloke, and has only known Rachel for a couple of months, seems hell bent on putting up with her. There are some reviews that state he has no backbone and when he does stand up that it's not that impressive. I don't necessarily think this is the truth. I feel like he does a decent job of (eventually) holding his ground. I do have to say I think this trip would have been deal breaker for me and we'll get into that when we discuss Rachel. I think he should have left long before he did. Way too tolerant and thinking too much with other parts of his anatomy I think. A typical young guy. He does everything that he can to help her; though, not much else for him to do.
Shall we talk about Rachel? At first I simply found her annoying. Nothing too horrible. I didn't hate her. She still had hope but unfortunately that all went down hill when she used James, lied to James multiple times, manipulated James, faked evidence and was uncooperative in that she was not willing to really tell him what is going on. Hell, we find out later that she has spent the past decade in a mental health facility... perhaps something that you would want to tell someone that you were in a relationship with. Honestly though, I don't think she ever intended to be in any kind of serious relationship with him. I think she was just using him. She does find what she is looking for which proves that she is not crazy. Just a selfish, pathological lying bitch, and not redeemable in my book.
Closing thoughts:
So I mean it was definitely an interesting story. It would have been cool to have a bit more background on what happened with Edward and Georgette. A bit more about the child and it's background. The ending was kinda tragic. I knew that James was having a cardiac episode when it mentioned his left arm hurting. That's text book heart attack stuff. This said I wasn't expecting him to land where he did. Darn epilogue!
