TITLE: Beneath the Poet’s House
AUTHOR: Christa Carmen
321 pages, Thomas & Mercer, ISBN 9781662513275 (paperback; also e-book, audio)
MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5
There is no “sophomore slump” for Christa Carmen. Beneath the Poet’s House, the standalone follow-up to 2023’s The Daughters of Block Island, is another engrossing New England Gothic tale featuring a strong female protagonist contending with secretive, sketchy men who may or may not have her best interests at heart, friends with mysterious pasts and motives, and a lingering sense that something supernatural may be going on.
Saoirse White has moved to Providence to start over after the unexpected death of her controlling husband. The house she rents turns out to be the historic home of poet and spiritualist Sarah Helen Whitman, who was once engaged to Edgar Allan Poe, frequented by a trio of local writers who invite her to join their occasional seances calling upon Whitman’s spirit for guidance and inspiration. She also meets Emmit Powell, a prize-winning author with a Poe fixation. New friends and new romance seem to respark her lost creativity … but are the odd things happening around her the work of Whitman and Poe’s spirits, or something more mundane and sinister?
Saoirse is a woman fighting the demons of her past, hoping for a fresh start. Carmen doles out Saoirse’s secrets (not all of which have to do with her troubled marriage and her husband’s death) in tantalizing little moments that sometimes go unnoticed until you realize later how well the author seeded them. As someone who has struggled with writer’s block resulting in part from depression after a major life-changing event, I connected with Saoirse’s struggles – and I both reveled in and felt concern for how her creativity comes rushing back to her, wondering if, again, there was something supernaturally malevolent happening.
Carmen is a master at surrounding her protagonists with characters whose motives and intentions are not always clear, keeping the reader wondering which characters will turn out to be truly on her side and which will not. Saoirse’s new friends, new love interest, late husband’s best friend, and parents all contribute to the general sense of unease that permeates the book, and all have moments where I questioned what their true motives were – without ever feeling like any of them were acting “out of character.” (Well, except for Saoirse’s father. He’s in like one scene, and sorry, he’s just an unrepentant asshole.)
The city of Providence is also a character – or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the city of Providence’s literary history is. Whitman is a strong presence throughout the book because Saoirse lives in the poet’s house, which means of course Whitman’s one-time fiancée, Poe, is a strong presence as well. But so is H.P. Lovecraft. And Emmit Powell calls to might a plethora of “charismatic and charming” New England award-winning authors who moonlight as college professors. I’ve read my fair share of Poe, Lovecraft, and contemporary award-winning auteurs. This book has inspired in me some about curiosity about Sarah Helen Whitman, though, which I think may have been Carmen’s intention.
The general Gothic sensibility of the book (houses with a dark history, characters with secrets and questionable motives, a female main character in danger) really worked for me. Carmen’s atmospherics are on point and kept me in a state of building dread that pushed me to keep reading even when I knew I should be going to sleep, all leading to a satisfactory set of reveals (secrets must be revealed in such a book) and conclusion. I hope the book will have the same effect on you.
I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Beneath the Poet’s House was released on December 10, 2024, so this review is a bit late.