Review: The Secret of Montrose Hall by Adam Steel

by Claire Rees

First Chapter, First Paragraph

It was a chill October morning and thick fog hung over the moors like a shroud. It had rained for a solid two weeks and the moors were sodden and black with peat. In the distance the towers of The Great Hall protuded above the fog like the grotesque bones of some long extinct dinosaur. It was a cold and miserable looking place. The Great Hall lay below the suffocating fog in a shallow valley surrounded by stunted oak trees. The nearest village of Woolstock was two miles away, but it was a little more than a collection of cottages, a village shop and an inn called 'The Black Sheep'. The Great Hall had been there as long as any of the local villages could remember and some said that parts of it dated back a thousand years.  There were rumours that it was built on an ancient pagan ritual site from some long forgotten druidic age, but they were just rumours and the villagers liked to invent rumours to appease the occasional tourist and to pass the dark winter nights while they supped beer and played darts in the safety of The Black Sheep.

The Review

The Secret of Montrose Hall follows the life of Irish con artist Connor. He leads a deceitful and despicable life and will do anything to get money. He is extremely selfish to the point where even his own parents have washed their hands of him. He finds his next con when he see an ad for a job. The job is to find out if the Montrose family has an heir and if they do then to track down that heir and take them back to Montrose manner with him to meet the family. Connor has no intention of doing this, he plans to take the £2000 upfront payment and disappear but when he finds out that he could possibly make another £20,000 if he is successful he decides to actually work for his money this time. He hates the time he has to spend at the manor house and his employers are really creepy, there is definitely something not quite right about them or the other staff at the house. He is warned by the people of the village that the Montrose family are cursed and dangerous and to leave but the call of the money is too strong for Connor and he carries on. He finds the Montrose Heir in the form of sixteen year old Evelin and takes her back to Montrose hall. Desperate to leave her sad life, of no money and no family she leaves with him without too many questions.

Then Connor truly finds out what horrors await them both he feels bad for taking her there on the first place and they try to escape. A fantastic story I really did not expect the ending. The characters are great and the reader can really get a feel of how despicable and horrid they really are. You will love this book if you like books full of mystery, suspense and creepiness.

Buy The Secret of Montrose Hall at Amazon

Book info:
available formats: ebook and print (344 pages)
published: February 2015
ISBN13: 978-1508855835
genres: suspense, thrillers
read: June 2015

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