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Book Review of A Heart Possessed

A Heart Possessed
reviewed on + 42 more book reviews


This book started out beautifully written. I haven't read this author in a few years although I've enjoyed almost every one of Sutcliffe's books, and I have read many. This is one of her earliest.

The plot has a dark, gothic feel to it. The way the plot unravels gradually in the 1st half of the book had me hooked. IMO the writing was some of the best I've read, particularly in that first love scene. (Sigh) It is written so beautifully and tenderly, I know I'll want to re-read it again just for this scene.

It takes place in Malham on the Moor, Yorkshire, England in the year 1800. I could feel the freezing wind that blew off the Moor around the heroines cloak as "the dawn crept in on misty feet". The writing put me right there in that dreary place she stood.

After the first half, the plot moved into the twisted tangled drama of a family filled with madness, secrets, murder, mahem, hauntings, a ghost, and then some.