Gallant

By: V.E. Schwab

Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt

Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A KIRKUS BEST BOOK

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER

A NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER

“A bone-chilling standalone . . . which fuses Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror sensibilities with the warmth and dark whimsy of Neil Gaiman.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Gripping worldbuilding, well-rounded characters, and fantastic horror.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Unsettling and intriguing.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

#1 New York Times–bestselling author V. E. Schwab weaves a dark and original tale about the place where the world meets its shadow, and the young woman beckoned by both sides. The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak in this stand-alone novel perfect for readers and listeners of Holly Black and Neil Gaiman.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for Girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home; it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile, or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?

New York Times–bestselling author V. E. Schwab crafts a vivid and lush novel that grapples with the demons that are often locked behind closed doors. An eerie, stand-alone saga about life, death, and the young woman beckoned by both. Readers of Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Melissa Albert, and Garth Nix will quickly lose themselves in this novel with crossover appeal for all ages.

©2022 Victoria Schwab (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

“The stuff of fairy tales or something darker”

Fourteen-year-old Olivia attends and lives in Merilance School for Independent Girls, “an asylum for the young and the feral and the fortuneless. The orphaned and unwanted.” The matrons of the school try to give the girls a “practical” education to help them survive in a society that doesn’t want them. Olivia has taught herself her most useful skills: drawing and picking locks. Partly because she is the only mute in the school and has a bad temper (when angered, she’s capable of breaking things and throttling foes), Olivia is friendless, feared by the other girls and disciplined by the matrons. She is a sensitive girl; in fact, she’s the only person in the school who can see ghouls (ghosts), which does raise the question (for a while) as to whether they are real or products of her imagination, whether she can see them because she has heightened sensitivity to them or is suffering from mental delusion.

Olivia’s prized possession is her mother’s cryptic journal, written to her father, whose untimely death while her mother was pregnant with her apparently drove her mother mad. The last page of the journal is addressed to Olivia and says, “You'll be safe as long as you stay away from Gallant.” Thus, it is with happiness and dread that Olivia learns that her uncle has located her after long searching and has written a letter summoning her “home” to Gallant.

The bulk of the novel then features a rambling old mansion, a family curse or duty, a hostile cousin (“I am the last Prior!”), a pair of kind mixed-race lover-caretakers, a lot of melancholy ghouls (ghosts), an intricate clockwork sculpture featuring a replica of Gallant and a kind of shadow replica of it, a big garden invaded by creepy gray weeds and punctuated by a disturbing ruined wall with an ominous iron door, and a malevolent white-eyed “Master” from the other side of the wall. Despite the fraught secret history, unpleasant cousin Matthew, and her new scary dreams, Olivia desperately wants to have found a true home at last. The story is, then, a Gothic YA horror mystery, as Olivia gradually learns the deal behind her parents, her family, Gallant, and so on.

Perhaps Schwab gets a bit too much into YA short sentence/paragraph/chapter cliffhanger page turning mode as the novel progresses. It belongs to the current stylistic trend of much young adult fiction (it’s even narrated in the present tense, though blessedly not first person). And I wish the clock-house sculpture did something integral to the story instead of just looking cool. And as is usual with horror stories and mysteries, this one is more interesting before we find out what’s going on and what kind of evil monster Olivia must contend with.

If in her orphanhood and unique sensitivity, intelligence, and isolation Olivia seems like a typical YA heroine, the book does interesting things with dreams and death and ghosts and communication, her muteness is affecting, and it’s nice that there is no romance angle for her. And Schwab is a good enough writer of vivid and tight enough prose to make us care for the girl and so to feel great suspense on her behalf.

And there is lots of neat writing in the novel.

Neat creepy fantasy:
“Not a ghost, exactly, just a bit of tattered cloth, a handful of teeth, and a single, sleepy eye floating in the dark. It moves like a silverfish at the edge of Olivia’s sight, darting away every time she looks. But if she stays very still and keeps her gaze ahead, it might grow a cheekbone, a throat. It might drift closer, might blink and smile and sigh against her, weightless as a shadow.”

Vivid similes:
“Something wriggles inside her then, half terror and half thrill. Like when you take the stairs too fast and almost slip. The moment when you catch yourself and look down at what could have happened, some disaster narrowly escaped.”

Neat descriptions:
“… the raspberries bursting brightly in her mouth.”
“They [some drawings] are strange, even beautiful, organic things that shift and curl across the page, slowly resolving into shapes. Here is a hand. Here is a hall. Here is a man, the shadows twisting at his feet. Here is a flower. Here is a skull. Here is a door flung open onto—what? Or who? Or Where?”

I am thankful that Schwab apparently wrote this as a compact stand-alone novel and not as the first in yet another trilogy or longer series, and I will probably read another book by her, although I'm not eager to embark on one of her young adult fantasy trilogies.

Kept me coming back

I started this book after reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Although the two books are completely different, I became interested in Olivia’s entangled life and how it related to the house at Gallant. I am always intrigued with stories of the haunted and the after life.

Hauntingly Beautiful

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but wow. Just wow. Honestly, I'm not even sure of the genre, but as an avid reader who wanted something different, this was it. Perfection. Sadness. Beauty. Family. Just so hauntingly beautiful. And the narration: PERFECTION.

Another Home Run by Schwab, Narration is Superb.

Schwab has done it again, Gallant is incredible. I can't write any further without fear of spoilers, but if you've loved Schwab's other works, add this one to your list.

The performance by Julian Rhind-Tutt is perfect, the way he narrates helps bring so much of Gallant to life. The emotional parts hit home, and the suspenseful parts send shivers up your spine. His voice is a perfect fit for this story.

Beautiful story, amazing narration.

Chilling and vivid

I don't think I've had a book capture my imagination quite as vividly as this one in quite some time. Every description, every emotion played out in such detail without feeling overly wordy. A hard balance to hit in my opinion. Each scene had my undivided attention and I found myself constantly yearning to start it back up any time I had to pause it. Will definitely recommend this book to all of my friends. I'm even considering buying a physical copy for my personal library.

A new “Coraline” crossed with The Nutcracker

A new “Coraline” crossed with The Nutcracker. An amalgamation of stories other have written that would usually annoy me but because I love those references, I enjoyed this!

Lives up to the comparisons to Gaiman

Thank goodness the publisher and reviewers said Neil Gaiman fans would appreciate this book—I probably wouldn’t have looked twice otherwise. But they were right,at least in my case. The story, despite being about an orphaned teenage girl, was not typical angst-filled YA nonsense. It was well-written, compelling, imaginative and satisfying. As a bonus, the narrator sounds a lot like Gaiman—the kind of voice that is sweetly comforting even as the story is creeping you out. I’m looking forward to more from this author!

It was ok....

Just not my type of book- a bit slow, I almost did not finish it, a couple of times. But- you can speed up books!

Good one for sure

Love Schwab and this book was a great read/listen as always. Highly recommend for all

Dreamy

But dreams can be nightmares. Lovely language, deliberately paced. Gorgeous imagery and a gothic sensibility.