It was 1890 and we have a lovely re-imagining of The House of Usher, a gothic tale set in a creepy house next to a dead lake.

The lake was full of reflected stars. The strange water gave them a faint green tinge, flickering slightly as I watched, probably from ripples. Not that the ghastly lake ever seemed to ripple when I watched. I looked up, away from the water, hoping to find an anchor in the familiar constellations.
There were no stars.
I believe I stared for at least half a minute, while this knowledge worked slowly through my brain. It was an overcast night. The sky was dark gray with a sliver of moon just edging through.
I looked back down, at a lake full of stars.

Love it! Such a spooky story perfect for October. We have a sworn soldier from a far away country, we have their footman, Angus, we have a brother and a sister dying in an old and mouldy house and an American doctor.

And a mycologist. If you’ve seen The last of us, you will know a bit too much about fungus and the way it can even reanimate the dead.

“Well, I am a superstitious soul,” said Angus, “and I know there is. It ain’t canny. The sort of place you find devils dancing on the moors.”
“There aren’t any moors. There’s a sort of heath and a tarn and a mad Englishwoman painting mushrooms.”

Easton, the sworn soldier, is actually a woman and we get an intro in the different pronouns they use and why it was acceptable in their country (very progressive). She visits her former mate from the war and his sister in their country home and is surprised when they both look quite ill. Madeleine, the sister, is even walking on her own at night, succumbing to bouts of sleepwalking and talks slurred when awoken.

Madeline’s lips pulled up at the corners in a terrible parody of good humor, her mouth stretching painfully wide, her jaw dropped so far that it looked almost like a scream. Above that awful grin, her eyes were as flat and dead as stones.
I do not delude myself that I have seen every way the human mind can fail, though I have seen a hundred ways that soldiers and civilians can break in war. But I had never seen a smile like that.

So creepy! After talking to the villagers and the local mycologist who says is related to Beatrix Potter (mostly known for her Petter Rabbit stories then her studies on mushrooms), they start figuring out that there’s something in the tarn (the local lake) and it makes the rabbits behave weirdly (thus the gorgeous cover)

“The hares around here act strange. All the locals say they’re possessed. No, I don’t believe that.” I raised a hand to forestall Denton’s protests. “Most of us go to the Devil without him having to personally oversee things. But I saw a hare out on the moors that moved very strangely, and Maddy sleepwalking reminded me of it.…”

It did not try to escape. That was somehow the most horrible part of all. It crawled back to its position in the circle of hares and it sat up, despite half its skull being missing. It turned its head so that its remaining eye pointed at me and tucked its paws against its chest like all the others.
Whatever looked out at me through that eye was not a hare.
My nerve broke and I ran.

Love it! 100/100 for the creepy atmosphere, the rabbits and the tarn. I’m not going to spoil the book, just to let you know it’s something in the lake driving all of this. Can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

To finish off, here’s some amazing drawings from Beatrix Potter regarding mycellium and at least the society apologised posthumous for not acknowledging a woman in their midst.