C-
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
CW/TW in this review: discussion of domestic abuse, domestic violence, gaslighting, suicide and murder.
The Woman in the Dark by Vanessa Savage looked to be the kind of creepy psychological thriller that is normally right up my alley. It has a family moving into a place called the “Murder House,” for heaven’s sake. That’s some Elyse-nip right there.
Unfortunately this book was much less a psychological thriller and more a story of a woman escaping a horrifyingly abusive husband. There’s a point to be made there: the greatest threat to women often comes from someone they are intimately acquainted with, not a menacing stranger. That said, this book was far more intense that I had anticipated, to the point where I found it upsetting. The elements of domestic violence are revealed very early on, so that even if the husband isn’t the “Murder House” villain, he’s certainly a monster. It was a difficult read, bordering on triggering, and I need to issue a Content Warning for this book for a graphic rape scene, self-harm, domestic abuse, and suicidal ideation.
Honestly, I’m not sure why I even finished this book, aside from my need to see justice done and get closure. I certainly left it feeling worse than when I went in.
The book’s narrator is Sarah, a stay-at-home mother in England. Her husband, Patrick, urges her to go visit the house he grew up in, which is now for sale. Patrick loved the beach house he was raised in, and was devastated when his parents eventually lost it due to financially difficulty. It’s back on the market now, and at a reduced cost, because hey, the family who bought it after his parents were all murdered! Neat! The only survivor, their young son, is now an adult who is selling the house fifteen years after the murders.
Sarah isn’t too keen on buying the place, cuz, you know, “Murder House.” Also even with the reduced price it’s going to stretch their family financially. She’s also dealing with some depression after her mother’s death, and their oldest son is struggling a bit too. It’s not a great time for a big move.
So then Sarah nearly overdoses on sleeping pills (which she doesn’t remember doing at all except Patrick insists she tried to kill herself) and while she’s in the hospital under a psychiatric hold, Patrick uses her inheritance money from her mother to buy the house.
And that pretty sets up the rest of the book right there. Patrick is abusive and controlling from the outset: physically, financially and emotionally.
So the family moves to the “Murder House” and settles in and things are immediately not great. Sarah and their kids (a teenage son and daughter) hate it immensely. The house is dark and creepy and has cold spots in it. Sarah tries to paint over one of those growth charts (where you mark your kids’ heights on the wall) from the previous residents, but the paint can’t seem to cover the marks no matter how many coats she uses. She keeps seeing someone watch the house and finds strange gifts, like a conch shell, on her front porch.
Now, see, that’s what I am all about. Creepy “Murder House” shenanigans. The problem is, as much as Sarah feels endangered from some unseen force outside the home (the watching stranger), it’s apparent to the reader that Patrick is a real threat. It’s hard to care about ghostly doings when the call is coming from inside the house, Sarah.
It’s a chilling point. Sarah and her children are living in a house that feels haunted, possibly being stalked by someone who already murdered a family that lived there, but the most immediate threat to her is her own husband.
Patrick is struggling at work and of course it’s Sarah’s fault for screwing up a dinner with his new boss. She’s an artist, and to punish her from some perceived slight, he burns her sketchbooks. In a fit of anger he forces a hot dish into her hands, burning them. Patrick is a real piece of shit. And we know Patrick can’t be the watching stranger because he’s home when Sarah sees the creeper outside.
I struggled with this book in part due to how graphic and overt Patrick’s abuse was, and in part because I felt like the competing tensions (domestic violence versus potential external violence) weren’t sufficiently balanced.
I’m used to reading creepy stuff. I typically really enjoy it. I’ve read certain elements of abuse in psychological thrillers (gaslighting features heavily), and violence is a feature in many mystery/thrillers as well. I think part of the reason I felt so put-off by Patrick’s abuse was how intimate and real it felt. I was not distanced by a crime that happened in the past or off screen. This book didn’t feature a hint of Gothic-unease. Patrick’s cruelties were immediate, personal and unrelenting. His attacks start nearly from page one and don’t let up until the very end.
That was also why I felt the pacing was off. Typically psychological thrillers thrive when a sense of normalcy is disrupted by a sensation of unease that floats just beneath the surface of the narrator’s awareness. As the book progresses, that tension ratchets up. The Woman in the Dark starts out with obvious domestic abuse and danger to Sarah and it never slows down. I needed to catch my breath, but I couldn’t. The terror, both from Patrick and the potential “Murder House” villain, is relentless. As a reader, I never felt able to step away or process what was has happening. Sarah was hammered constantly by real threats of violence, so much so that it was overwhelming and suffocating.
By the end, I could not have cared less about whether or not the house was haunted or the killer was watching the family. All I cared about was Sarah getting the fuck away from Patrick and taking her kids to a shelter. That became the sole focus on the book for me. Even as Patrick’s actions made me more angry and sick, I felt compelled to keep reading because I wanted to ensure Sarah ended the book in a place where she and the kids were safe. If the murderer had shown up, I would have told him, “Hang on a fucking minute, okay, we’re already dealing with something here.”
I wanted to be engaged in the “Murder House” plot line since that’s where my original interest was, but I was too busy worrying for Sarah’s domestic situation to care much if a murderer was stalking the family. It may have been the author’s point entirely, but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting.
If you want to be spoiled:
If you’re looking for a spooky thriller set in a creepy old house, then I think The Woman in the Dark might miss the mark for you like it did for me. If you want an exploration of domestic violence as a real and visceral terror that women face–above and beyond threats from a mysterious stranger–then this book might work for you. Just be warned that the violence is graphic, pervasive and unrelenting.
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Thanks!
Mm, this looks like an example of a subgenre I love, but that I’d find really hard to read too. Thanks for the review/warning! A recommendation in return: I recently read and enjoyed Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party, which has lots of interesting characters and less of men-endangering-women.
I used to read a lot of psychological suspense—never as much as romance or mystery, but I used to read at least one or two a month; but over the last couple of years, I’ve essentially given up on the genre. So many books marketed as psychological suspense seem to do little more than luxuriate in abusive/gaslighting behavior toward women. I became aware of an ongoing subtext of “women deserve this treatment for believing their loved ones/having children/being trusting,” etc. In other words, “punished” for being decent people. I’ve read some really good psychological suspense in the past, but so much of the recent crop seems overjoyed at destroying women. No thanks.
I thought the writing in this was great, and it builds insane amounts of suspense. I guess it depends on whether the reader has any personal experiences that make this a particularly sensitive topic for them.
I am ready for the book where the twist is that the ghosts/murder house are looking out for the heroine and trying to protect her from the abusive male authority.
Ms. M I’m with you. Let’s have the haunted house flip the wife-beater’s desk right over on his toxic ass.
Let’s just skip this and read The Woman in White again, where a woman is key to ensuring that the abuser gets what’s coming to him.
I read this one and disliked it for the same reason. The ending was barely adequate and the ‘mystery’ took a distant backseat to the abusive marriage. I needed it to end better.
I’m reading it at the moment— the main thing it does is make me angry that Sarah is being so heavily gaslighted without apparently noticing. Someone beats a path to her door offering her creative/art work, and she really wants to do it but Patrick tells her she isn’t worth it. She draws back and exercises her creativity in doing up the house, and (despite sinking her entire savings into the house) he berates her furiously. But he’s “not an angry man”. Is author implying that she’s a bit dim?
Author probably means that the honeymoon stage will have gone on long enough that the victim will try to second-guess her reactions, but it’s not working properly because the reader comes in at “already deeply abusive” instead of “we had several months of bliss and then he casually backhanded me over a dirty mark on a plate DOES NOT COMPUTE HALP DID THIS REALLY ACTUALLY HAPPEN?”