Book Review: The Ghost Tree by Barbara Erskine

Pages: 592
Publisher: Harper Collins
Released: March 7, 2019
Received: ARC from publisher
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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Barbara Erskine is an author on my TBR list, but not one I had read yet. As a first foray, The Ghost Tree is not bad. I didn't love it, but I liked it enough to still want to read more of her books. I'd class this book in the same company as Susanna Kearsley or Mary Stewart's Thornyhold type of books: British, a touch of the supernatural, dreamy, historical, great houses, a slow background romance, and a main character who is likable but not particularly stand out.

The Ghost Tree is probably more massive than it needed to be. It clocks in at 592 pages and it's not riveting or detailed enough to really warrant that. It felt like another editing pass through to clean things up would have tightened the story, shortened the pages, and made for a smoother book overall. As it was, the length wasn't much of a problem for me because the chapters are so teeny tiny (1-5 pages on average).

So, what's going on here? A lot. We follow Ruth's ancestor Thomas during the 18th century as he basically lives his life, gets married, has kids, and tries to avoid a man who decides to stalk and harry him. We follow Ruth as she is stalked by a brother and sister who develop a fixation on her. She's also haunted by the ghost of Thomas's stalker and she enlists the help of a charming chef and a tweedily attractive ghostbuster/historian. Ruth also house hops trying to avoid her natural and supernatural stalkers and each house she stays in is awesome.

While neither story is particularly gripping, both were interesting enough to hold my attention and the stalking aspect, especially how randomly something like that can happen, was horrifying and well done. I feel like I'm damning this book with faint praise. The thing is, objectively, there's a lot I was pretty lukewarm about. I liked it all, but that's it. As a whole experience, though, I enjoyed it. I looked forward to reading more, even if I wasn't staying up late to do so.

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