A House of Ghosts

The perfect haunting, atmospheric mystery for dark winter nights . . .

By: W. C. Ryan

Narrated by: Jot Davies

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

A gripping mystery with a classic feel: And Then There Were None meets The Silent Companions.

Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives.

At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons who were lost in the conflict. But as his guests begin to arrive, it gradually becomes clear that each has something they would rather keep hidden. Then, when a storm descends on the island, the guests will find themselves trapped. Soon one of their number will die.

For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one.... 

An unrelentingly gripping mystery packed with twists and turns, A House of Ghosts is the perfect chilling listen this winter.
 

©2018 W. C. Ryan (P)2018 Bonnier Publishing

Critic reviews

"Almost unbearably creepy and beautifully written." (Liz Nugent, best-selling author of Lying in Wait)

"A splendid tale of wartime skullduggery, featuring both kinds of spooks - perfect fireside reading." (Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning author of Dead Lions) 

"Hugely enjoyable, A House of Ghosts has the bones of a taut thriller wrapped up in the gorgeous romance of its ghostly island setting." (Jane Casey)

Wonderful story, great narration.

As wonderful spoken as it was to read. Hearing the accents really added to the story.

A Winter Cracker

A great book and listen. I don't usually enjoy books with war as a subject matter but this was so much more and I'm glad I gave it a go. There's wonderful characters, intrigue, suspense, mystery, romance and a bit of supernatural. All this plus it takes place in a house with secret passages that's been cut off from the world by storms, what's not to love. Very atmospheric, well written and narrated. I'm hoping for a second book with Kate and Donovan but it will be tough to follow up this one.

I want more

Fantastic story. I did find the narrators voices for the different characters a little grating at time but it didn’t distract me too much from the mystery of the spirit laden island.
I want more of Kate and Donovan, so I hope William Ryan is currently penning the sequel.

a good listen

good narrator..really quite scary in places..glad I listened. would recommend if you like the supernatural

A good start but boring tale

TLDR: Read the first 10 pages and the last 10 pages the rest is a waste of time.

The idea of the story is good, what if ghosts can come back from beyond the grave to talk to their loved ones.
Unfortunately the story decides very quickly that ghosts are real and the several people in the house can see them.
That removes the supernatural element as being remotely relevant to the plot.


Then we get to the "Murder" which is barely dealt with at all. No working out alibis, no gathering clues , no legwork to track down an explanation of events. Oh dear.

Then we have the pastiche of espionage.
Is someone in the house a spy? Who knows the plot certainly doesn't dwell on it for long.

In short a promising setup ruined by cardboard characters (a flighty female sidekick, a patriotic arms producer and a pair of am-dram level mediums), a plotline that can't decide if it's a mystery, a ghostly tale of suspense, a spy thriller or a third rate war adventure.
The story lurches from stock cliche to stock cliche and never gets properly going.

Got tedious

I really loved the story as it set out and the first characters introduced, and was really looking forward to a good story, also because it had received such great reviews. Great was my surprise then when I simply found the whole seance storyline boring and repetitive. It felt like a lot of talk and discussions and no action. I tried to listen for as long as I could, but midway I had lost interest completely and gave up listening. Did I miss something great? I guess I'll never know.

Agatha Christy-esq murder mystery

Absolutely loved this story.
It’s part ghost story,part murder mystery,part World War One thriller.
The two main characters are quite endearing as are the rest of the characters, a wicked old German woman, some soldiers and some officers, some frivolity and some ptsd all in the best possible British humour and guns ho spirit. I wanted it to go on forever.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys WW1 history, spy novels, Agatha Christy fans or anyone who has never read a spy novel or a murder mystery or a good old ghost story but wants to try them out.
I really enjoyed both listening to this and reading it. I like the narrator doing all the different voices. Some of which made me giggle!

Good listen

Good all round book, I did listen to the end - which for me is unusual, good characters but I think a little more could have been done with them. Not as good as The Inspector Hobb series, Sydney Grice, Inspector Grey or Rosie Strange only because the characters were not as well padded. Hope that makes sense. But good.

Underwhelming

There was plenty of potential for this book to be good; it had flavours of Christie, Fleming and M R James. Sadly, it was fairly disappointing. Of course, there were clues that the plot was a bit insecure not long after the opening in a secret office in London run by 'C'. When the 'cover' created by C for the two main protagonists lasts less than 24 hours alarm bells start to ring. Why the build up of the undercover backstory if their real identities and motivations are quite so transparent? It implies that either the secret department, or the writer, is a little amateurish. The various plots continue on rather meandering paths some of which peter out to rather confusing dead ends. They skate over rather than engaging with serious political, historical and social issues.

The ending is rather melodramatic too, and rather abrupt; it's certainly disappointing. However, by the end, the characters, who seemed so engaging at the beginning, never seemed to develop any further and the reader kind of loses interest in their well being. Donovan seems to retain his cool aloofness, Kate a rather airy vapidity and they both seem rather one dimensional; their tentative romance also fails to engage our interest. Even the supernatural elements, which could have added some titilating excitement, aren't dealt with deftly enough to plaster over the cracks in the rest of the story.

The narrator gives a good performance so I lay my completion of this book at his door - had I been reading it myself I would have abandoned it.

very entertaining and well read

not exactly a ghost story but ironically with more ghosts than most books. i enjoyed the ww1 angle on an old fashioned british country house mystery all in all well worth a listen.

Almost a really really good book.

A country house mystery set during the Great War with both supernatural and government spooks- what’s not to like? Shades of a contemporary Dennis Wheatley.
In the first half, the sense of time and place was beautifully drawn, and the characters were distinct and intriguing.
But the second half lost momentum as the ghosts were relegated to mere onlookers in a wartime drama. Such a shame.
I love the narrator (since Evelyn Hardcastle) but Kate needed a more clipped Celia Johnson accent.