Review: The Quiet House by Lily Morton

Title: The Quiet House

Series: Black & Blue: Book Two

Author: Lily Morton

Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited

Length: 271 Pages

Category: Contemporary Romance, Paranormal Suspense

Rating: 4.5 Stars

At a Glance: I do so love a good Gothic ghost story, and The Quiet House is one, filled with chills and menace and horrors galore; don’t for a moment believe it’s not deliriously entertaining.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Levi Black has mostly recovered from the events of a year ago. The only lingering effects are that he’s much more well known in York than he’d like to be, and he’s a lot more cautious about walking around his house naked. However, those events brought him the capricious and fascinating Blue, so he’s not complaining. On the contrary, he’s happy, in love, and looking forward to Blue finally moving in with him. And if sometimes he wonders what Blue sees in a boring cartoonist, he keeps that to himself.

Blue Billings is finally ready to throw off the memories of his past and move in with the person who means the most in the world to him. His psychic abilities have grown in the last year to his mentor Tom’s consternation, but Blue is determined to look on the bright side. He’s also focused on ignoring all the warning signs that he’s received lately.

However, even deeply buried secrets have a way of rising to the surface. And when a surprise from Blue’s past turns up and draws them away to a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors, Levi and Blue must fight for their survival once again.

Review: Lily Morton gifts her readers, once again, with a visit to her delightfully spooky Black & Blue series, bringing Levi Black and Blue Billings to rich and wonderful life on the pages of The Quiet House, a title so steeped in irony I relished every moment Morton spent illuminating the paradox of it in the contrast of “the Murder House,” and the estate to which Levi, Blue, and Tom travel at the behest of its owner. Let me assure you, that place was anything but quiet.

This story takes place a year after the events of The Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings, and sees Levi and Blue on the cusp of taking their relationship to the next level. But Blue has barely set foot over the threshold of his new home, Levi’s home, with all his worldly belongings in tow, when an unexpected, and rather unwelcome, visitor shows up to make Blue an offer he’s far too tempted by to refuse. Morton infuses this scene with a bit of conflict and emotion to draw the reader in, compelling us to wonder how this particular storyline and its enigmatic harbinger of temptation will play out as part of the grander scheme. There is the promise of a large sum of money going to the person who can provide proof and specifics of the paranormal goings-on at the Viscount Ingram’s estate to consider, that is certainly a draw, but it’s most certainly who delivers the offer that sweetens the challenge for Blue and, by association, Levi.

I do so love a good Gothic ghost story, and The Quiet House is one, filled with chills and menace and horrors galore; don’t for a moment believe it’s not deliriously entertaining. The history of the hall—purported to be one of the most haunted places in all of England—and Viscount Ingram’s unsavory ancestry provides for plenty of chills, but the viscount’s story isn’t at all sinister in itself. It’s rather poignant, in fact. His motives aren’t evil; he does, however, make bad choices. To paraphrase Jurassic Park: Ingram got so preoccupied with whether or not he could that he didn’t stop to think if he should. And cue the chaos. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, indeed.

A Lily Morton ghost story wouldn’t be a Lily Morton ghost story without her trademark humor and snark, of course, which Blue and his friend and mentor, the lovingly irascible Tom, are absolute pros at delivering. It’s the romance, though, that so many of us show up for, and she delivers that reliably with every single book, Levi and Blue being no exception. Both men struggle with their own doubts and feeling of inadequacy, to be sure, but there is never a moment when Morton allows her readers to doubt that their love and commitment to each other is as safe as houses, as it were. And the ending was the deliciously sentimental icing on the friends-who-are-family cake.

With a cast of supporting characters for Blue to scoff at (with good reason) and to riff off of, he and Levi carry the story to its action-packed peak, leaving a certain story element directly related to Blue undone for future exploration. At least I hope so. At a minimum, the adventures Blue and Levi could partake in seem limitless, or as unlimited as the slew of ghosties surely haunting a country that’s been around for ages, and with such a colorful past.

You can buy The Quiet House here:
[zilla_button url=”https://smarturl.it/TheQuietHouse” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]