A review by ravensandlace
The House of Lost Wives by Rebecca Hardy

5.0

Title: The House of Lost Wives

Author: Rebecca Hardy

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: ebook

Series: NA

Star Rating: 5 stars

tw: assault, blood. Alcohol, death, gambling, poverty, rape, selling of humans, misogyny, injury, murder, PTSD, poisoning, loss of pregnancy, infidelity

I’ve been slowly getting into gothic horror and just gothic books in general. It’s a wonderful genre and it fits the spooky vibes I crave. I buddy-read this one with my good friend, Nenia. We have pretty similar tastes in books so we decided to give this one a shot as it was on sale. Both of us enjoyed it. 

One of the best things about this book was the main character, Lizzie. She was such a perfect main character. She took no crap, she was incredibly strong and she could talk to ghosts which I thought was so cool. I appreciated how normal it was for her. She just kind of accepted it with no real fuss. I didn’t have to read about the angst of her seeing ghosts. It was just a part of who she was and that was that. I loved her bond with her sister as well. If a book has strong sisterly bonds, there is a very high chance I’m going to love it. 

This book also fantastically handles sexual assault from the very first page. She wasn’t instantly fixed by her love interest. She worked her way to hearing but there were times she had setbacks which is all part of the healing journey. Which was refreshing to see. Everything about the topic was handled perfectly. 

Overall, this was such a good book. It’s also a Bluebeard retelling. I’ve never read Bluebeard so I know nothing about whether it stays true to the original story or not. I’ll have to read it and then come back to let you guys know. All I know is that this a beautifully written book about a fantastic and strong main character.