Book Review of THE GATES OF EVANGELINE by Hester Young

Happy Friday, readers of suspense and mystery. Mary Ellis here.

Today I’m reviewing a spooky mystery set in the humid, vine-entangled swamps of Louisiana. I can almost guarantee you won’t figure out this one early. I know I didn’t. The Gates of Evangeline is the debut novel by Hester Young, published by G.F. Putnam & Sons. Debut, as in first book ever. That thoroughly impressed me, since my first novel had nowhere near as complicated a storyline. And it won Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015. This book is not Christian fiction, but there is no profanity or graphic violence. Our heroine is a journalist who recently lost a child—a horror no parent should ever suffer. She accepts an assignment at a gothic mansion where time seems to have stood still. She is a Yankee in a Southern world and you can’t help but put yourself in the shoes of Charlotte Cates.

I felt the beginning moved too slowly, but that is the fault of the editor rather than the talented Ms. Young. Once the storyline picked up, I could not put this book down. I loved this novel, but the intensity is not for everyone. If you think you might like it, leave me a comment and I will draw a winner of my copy. (No, it’s not signed by the author. I don’t know Hester Young.) Also, I provided a link to purchase on Kindle, hardback, paperback, or Audible download.

Here is the back cover summary: When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children in danger, she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent. They are warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them. After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams, asking for her help, she finds herself entangled in a world-famous thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance with the estate’s landscape architect—the warm and handsome Noah Palmer—begin to heal her grief-stricken heart. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could have imagined.

You can buy The Gates of Evangeline HERE

Remember to leave me a comment, readers, alone with your email address. Have a lovely Spring weekend! ~ Mary Ellis