The Dark Bride

Reader Drummey’s brogue adds a layer of authenticity and atmosphere to Andersen’s unique mixture of contemporary mystery, romance, and gothic chiller set in a haunted Irish castle. In 2015, young Carragh Ryan, a novice archivist, is hired by 80-year-old Nessa Gallagher to inventory the historic library at the family’s Deeprath Castle, where, according to local legend, the ghost of the wrathful Darkling Bride is still in residence. The castle is soon to be donated to the Irish National Trust, a decision made by Nessa’s great nephew, Aidan Gallagher, a handsome Scotland Yard detective who inherited the estate after the still-unsolved murders of his parents at the castle two decades before. The novel flashes back to that period and to 1879, when Jenny Gallagher, the disturbed wife of novelist Evan Chase, killed herself. Drummey performs impressively as the despondent Jenny and the distraught Evan, and, when the Gallaghers gather at Deeprath, she gracefully shifts from imperious Nessa to distracted, aloof Aidan, to his brittle, cynical older sister Kyla and her smarmy, adulterous husband Philip. Drummey’s narration adds an Irish lilt to the love story, suspense to the whodunit, and an air of gloom and doom to the gothic flashbacks, resulting in a tale listeners will find as seductive as it is thrilling. [em]A Ballantine hardcover. (Mar.) [/em]