My Goodreads review: The Garden of Blue Roses

The Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I suspect that many fans of the modern Gothic would give this one at least four stars. It has pretty much everything one expects, with a few extras. Creepy family in privileged country-house life? Check. Mysterious death of parents? Check. Dark family secrets several layers deep? Check. Seriously unreliable narrator? Double, triple check.

Unfortunately, the famous horror-writer father who haunts (figuratively? literally?) so much of this story just did not work for me as a character. Most jarringly, this writer made his name as "the Master of the Slasher who writes in rhyming couplets." There are numerous quotations from his work throughout the book, and almost all of them felt forced. This poetry simply did not strike me as being something that would sell horror novels -- though, again, YMMV. Like much else about this character, these quotations seemed over the top.

That said, there's a lot to admire about this novel. In addition to the skillfully wrought Gothic atmosphere, the plot plays with reality vs. fiction in a completely disorienting way. Despite the intrusion of those couplets, suspense builds steadily, even when the reader is fairly sure whodunit -- if not why -- early on. This is a thoroughly stylized tale, but an absorbing one for those who are willing to let it unfold at its own pace.




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