[Book Review] Craven Manor by Darcy Coates

Finally! I’ve finally completed a book this year and it truly feels like a huge accomplishment! Lol. So, let’s dive right in, shall we?

Daniel is desperate for a job. When someone slides a note under his door offering him the groundskeeper’s position at an old estate, it seems too good to be true.

Alarm bells start ringing when he arrives at Craven Manor. The mansion’s front door hangs open, and leaves and cobwebs coat the marble foyer. It’s clear no one has lived there in a long time.

But an envelope waits for him inside the doorway. It contains money, and promises more.

Daniel is desperate. Against his better judgement, he moves into the groundskeeper’s cottage behind the crypt. He’s determined to ignore the strange occurrences that plague the estate.

But when a candle flickers to life in the abandoned tower window, Daniel realises Craven Manor is hiding a terrible secret… one that threatens to bury him with it.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Darcy Coates as a horror author and heard that she is a good entry point into horror if you are not really a horror reader. I am not a horror reader although I do love a gothic story with lots of atmosphere and a mystery. And well…atmosphere is all this story really had, in my humble opinion. I mean, there was a mystery there, but I don’t think it was really that hard to figure out. The author tried to divert your assumptions based off of all the mental gymnastics the main character was doing, but the diversion was not really done well (again, in my humble opinion).

I am a bit disappointed that this was my introduction to Darcy Coates as I can’t say I really liked this book. The main character, Daniel, was the most frustrating simpleton I’ve ever read about. In this story, he has fallen on hard times and was even homeless for a while, but we meet him after he has been living with his cousin, Kyle, for 6 months after finding him on the street one random day.

Daniel ends up getting a job offer of being a groundskeeper at Craven Manor, and from the beginning, the whole thing is just odd. But he’s desperate for a steady job so he accepts. I do not hold this against him, however, for someone who’s been homeless, Daniel had absolutely ZERO street smarts! And he made stupid decision after stupid decision after stupid freakin decision. I ended up rolling my eyes so much, I would often put the book down and just leave it for days at a time because Daniel was just so…irritating; to the point of exasperation, for me personally.

I am all about reading about a man that goes against typical masculinity. Daniel was not some macho alpha male that was demanding and an all-around disagreeable or unlikeable person. Some might even describe him as being “soft “and “innocent.” But he was written in a way that was completely frustrating to read about. He was insecure, weak, easily swayed, and allowed himself to be a complete doormat. I would hate this for any character no matter their sex or gender. He also lacked critical thinking skills and everything he did or said was super predictable.

His cousin Kyle was a stereotypical, condescending bully and he got what he deserved in the end. He was written to be so terrible that I couldn’t feel any human emotions towards him besides disgust and anger.

As the reader, I never learned anything about Daniel or Kyle. It was all very surface level. Why was Daniel homeless? I don’t know. Does he have any other family besides Kyle, and where are they? I don’t know. Kyle and Daniel are cousins by marriage. Who were the family members that got married that now connects them as family? I don’t know. Why can’t Daniel keep a job? I don’t know. What’s his educational level? I don’t know. We know literally nothing about these guys and we never find out either.

The paranormal/supernatural monster in this story was not scary. I did not know what to expect in terms of the paranormal aspect, but it definitely wasn’t whatever this was. The ghosts weren’t scary either or even remotely spooky, but this didn’t really bother me because not all ghosts are malevolent.

The plot/story itself was also really predictable. I would know almost exactly what was going to happen and then two pages later, it would happen. This did not make for an entertaining experience.

A couple positives for this book would be that the story was definitely atmospheric. I enjoyed the creepy, dilapidated manor with an overgrown garden, surrounded by a forest with trees populated by crows. When it comes to the gothic and spooky, I absolutely love crows, ravens, and gargoyles. When I write my own book, there will definitely be ravens in it!

This book is also really easy to read. The writing style is simplistic and accessible. One would not need above a middle school education in order to read this book and understand everything. I don’t mean that to be disrespectful to the author. I am stating that to explain that this is not a dense or pretentious book. It’s very accessible to a wide age range and the book does not contain any difficult or obscure vocabulary.

Overall, this book was very ‘meh’ for me. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it either. It honestly just felt like a PG-13 Halloween movie that might air on ABC Family during October for the countdown to Halloween. Again, this is not a bad thing. I just had different expectations due to all the raving positive reviews I’ve seen and how often Darcy Coates’ name would pop up when I’m searching for gothic or horror stories, especially haunted house stories. This was not a horror nor did it have any kind of scariness. And while there were definitely some gothic elements throughout, please do not go into this book expecting thrills and frights and the macabre. Go in just expecting lighthearted Halloween vibes and you might enjoy this book better than I did.

I’m still interested in reading some of Darcy’s other books though. I have two more on loan from my library and I unknowingly purchased one of her books last year before I ever even knew who she was in the horror/thriller/gothic online book space. I’ll give those a try sometime in the future.

However, on that note, I’m off to find my next read! ~