She Haunts Me Still by De Elizabeth
Blurb:
These violent delights have violent ends.
After surviving a shadowed childhood marked by ghost stories and loss, Mallory Webb is ready to start fresh as a theater major at her mother’s alma mater, a sanitarium turned liberal arts university in Rhode Island. Landing the lead role in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet feels like a dream—until the blood-soaked spirit she suspects caused her mother’s death resurfaces after years of quiet. With nothing to go on but cryptic symbols in an old college notebook, Mallory hopes the reason behind her mother’s haunting lies somewhere on campus, and resolves to find answers before she meets the same fate.
She’s surprised to make an unexpected ally in Ezra Pierce, the magnetic fourth year directing the play, and takes solace in their undeniable chemistry. But Ezra is a master secret-keeper, and it’s clear he knows more than he’s letting on about Saskia Garin, Mallory’s elusive understudy whose past eerily mirrors her own.
When an ancient, bloodthirsty evil calls to collect on a bargain that dates back to the New England vampire panic, Mallory, Ezra, and Saskia will have to untangle the tragic ways in which their histories are linked—and face the devastating consequences of their own star-crossed love story.
Review:
Mallory Webb is ready to enter a new life and unveil her mother’s secrets at a sanitarium turned liberal arts university in Rhode Island. Haunted by a harrowing past pockmarked by ghosts and insurmountable loss, she wants more than anything to discover more about the parent she never got to meet. Garnering the lead role in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet this year, she thinks she’s finally making progress and perhaps even making the ghosts of her family proud. That is, before the blood-soaked spirit she thinks caused her mother’s untimely demise reappears and begins causing chaos after years of quietude at the university.
Using symbols in an old college notebook as her sole lead, Mallory hopes to unravel her mother’s secrets, lies, and past—and to do so by exploring the clandestine nature of her college’s campus and history.
Desperate to figure out what happened to her mother before she meets the same fate, Mallory befriends and allies with a magnetic fourth year named Ezra Pierce, who’s directing the play in which she is the lead role. Taking solace in their chemistry and white-hot romance, Mallory is haunted by Ezra’s secrets, which add to the mystery of her mother, and determines to discover what he’s hiding. Especially in regard to her haunted understudy, Saskia Garin, whose past seems a little too similar to hers to be natural.
An ancient force calls for blood, collecting on an old bargain that links to the New England vampire panic, and Mallory, Ezra, and Saskia will have the untangle the tragedies of their linked histories in order to survive it—and to survive each other.
Oh my goshhhhhhh. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: De Elizabeth is a master storyteller and easily one of my favorite authors. I was so thrilled when I received the ARC for her newest publication, She Haunts Me Still, because I absolutely adored This Raging Sea and knew this novel would be yet another masterpiece. I was not disappointed.
She Haunts Me Still is sexy, passionate, dark, and spooky—an incredible novel that readers will tear through until they get to the great and terrible end. It’s pacey, grueling, and dank in terms of theme, a mixture of all the things I love in fiction.
As a prior theater nerd and queer author myself, I loved all the references tucked into the pages of this book, especially in regard to existing plays and theater tropes and things readers will hook their teeth into if they know theater as well as the author does. It’s a twist on classic tropes and ideas, one that will leave readers breathless and wanting to discover more of Elizabeth’s work.
Something I will always love about Elizabeth’s novels is how classy—and lush—her prose feels. It’s compelling and interesting, it’s fresh and simple, it’s evocative without being overbearing. I can see what the characters are seeing, I can feel what they are feeling, with such ease that I always breeze through the stories that Elizabeth writes. This is yet another narrative that I was obsessed with from the earliest pages, and it makes me even more excited to see where Elizabeth goes next with her storytelling.
If you haven’t read Elizabeth’s stories yet—you need to! This is an author who’s destined for greatness (and who is already great, in my eyes). Please, please, please, do yourself a favor and read De Elizabeth’s books!
