Bottling His Ghosts by S.H. Cooper

With the inheritance she receives from her husband's untimely death Netta Ward flees to her family home Daunderhead to grieve in the arms of her family. Almost as soon as she arrives though she discovers her adopted brother, Thorn, has started drinking, heavily destroying the peace in their family home. Everyone, except Netta, is at their wits end with Thorn and within weeks her sister in law and her niece leave as well as her parents and their maid. At first Netta sees this as not just an interesting opportunity to have the family home to herself but to also confront Thorn about his drinking. Hell bent on saving her brother from himself she confronts him only to find that he isn't alone; something is haunting him, haunting all of Daunderhead and if Netta doesn't find a way to stop these ghosts her brother my be lost to them forever. 

I loved Inheriting Her Ghosts, it was such a well written story and Eudora quickly became a new favorite character, so I had high hopes for this. Cooper not only met them they smashed through them with this terrifyingly beautiful tale of grief.

When I first started reading this I just assumed it would be about Netta's grief. I mean she's newly widowed so it makes sense and while I believe it still would have been a good book had Cooper went that route I am so very grateful they opted to make this about men's grief and how society expects them to deal with it. There is a scene at the end of this that is a poignant reminder that while is may not be the Victorian Era men are still expected to deal with grief by expressing as little outward emotion as possible by "bottling it up". By peppering the beginning of the story with very pointed remarks to this effect a tension builds up that you don't even really notice until that last scene with Thorn and its just explosive, a release you didn't even know you needed. Brilliantly executed and I definitely shed a tear or two for him and for Netta who hadn't realize how much she had contributed to Thorn's misery. 

Okay enough of the serious stuff. I, of course, got super excited when Mr. Bentley says "We're going to see a woman" because who else could he possibly have been talking about!? I also will give one tiny spoiler away and say that I'm super glad that the book ends with Netta bugging the hell out of Eudora because that gives me hope for a Netta/Eudora Supernatural Agency! Seriously that would be so cool. 

And just in case you were wondering: Of course the dogs save the day. No way could there be a book with Black Shuck and Cerebrus in it and they aren't the heroes. 

Thank you so much To S.H. Cooper for the ARC!