Why a Booktrail?
1800s: A doctor at an asylum becomes dangerously close to one of his patients
The Crow Garden
What you need to know before your trail
Haunted by his father’s suicide, Nathaniel Kerner walks away from the highly prestigious life of a consultant to work at Crakethorne Asylum. But this is no ordinary asylum as Nathaniel’s only interesting case is Mrs Victoria Adelina – Vita – Harleston: her husband accuses her of hysteria and delusions – but she accuses him of hiding secrets far more terrible.
Nathaniel is increasingly obsessed with Vita, but when he has her mesmerised, there are unexpected results. Vita starts hearing voices, just like her grandmother always claimed they had
Increasingly besotted, Nathaniel finds himself caught up in a world of séances and stage mesmerism in his bid to find out just who Vita is and what brought her to this place.
Travel Guide
CrakeThorne Manor, Yorkshire
Set in the damp and bleak fields of Yorkshire. As the narrator approaches their destination, she finds a forlorn-looking hills with crows, rising and falling like charred scarps thrown upward by a fire,
the driver announces that “Plenty goes in but not so many come out:
The asylum is “ a stolid creation, built for permanence rather than enjoyment”
The whole place is damp and cold, the sense of foreboding you get on the drive way up doesn’t lessen but rather increases.
If you think the outside is grim, then wait until you go inside…
The Yorkshire locations is not specified but the author is from Penistone and so this is on the booktrail map.
London
From the mist and fog of Yorkshire, The novel shifts to the thick, industrial fog of London. The capital city is an hotbed of its spiritualist circles and strange curiosities and displays at the infamous Egyptian Hall – a Victorian Believe it or Not. Bedlam is located here and not unlike the Woman in White which saw a woman forcibly admitted to as asylum suspected of madness, the capital is a world of mystery and spiritualist
This is the world of seances and mediums. A world of the shadowy, world of the Victorian theatre and the age of illusion. Hard to say which is the darker and more gothic.
Booktrailer Review
Susan:@thebooktrailer
Gothic atmosphere, set in an asylum in the midst of the Yorkshire Moors….mesmerism in theatres in London? Well this couldn’t be more atmospheric if it tried. Having loved the Little People, I was keen to read this one and it’s a unique world Alison draws, thats for sure. She approaches the shockingly true story of how women could so easily be taken into asylums on the word of their husbands. The scenes – for this novel reads like a series of scenes dimly lit with the sound of candles crackling in your ear, are horrific and even disturbing.
The author also uses many literary references in the novel -with poets Brown and Byron being used to show each of the main characters personalities. The world of mesmerism is drawn with detailed and disturbing words and the overall effect for me was chilling, disturbing and a darn good gothic read.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Crow Garden
Destination: Yorkshire, London Author/Guide: Alison Littlewood Departure Time: 1800s
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