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The Lost History of Dreams: A Novel by Kris Waldherr 
Published by Atria Books on 04/09/2019
All love stories are ghost stories in disguise.
When famed Byronesque poet Hugh de Bonne is discovered dead of a heart attack in his bath one morning, his cousin Robert Highstead, a historian turned post-mortem photographer, is charged with a simple task: transport Hugh’s remains for burial in a chapel. This chapel, a stained glass folly set on the moors of Shropshire, was built by de Bonne sixteen years earlier to house the remains of his beloved wife and muse, Ada. Since then, the chapel has been locked and abandoned, a pilgrimage site for the rabid fans of de Bonne’s last book, The Lost History of Dreams.
However, Ada’s grief-stricken niece refuses to open the glass chapel for Robert unless he agrees to her bargain: before he can lay Hugh to rest, Robert must record Isabelle’s story of Ada and Hugh’s ill-fated marriage over the course of five nights.
As the mystery of Ada and Hugh’s relationship unfolds, so does the secret behind Robert’s own marriage—including that of his fragile wife, Sida, who has not been the same since the tragic accident three years ago, and the origins of his own morbid profession that has him seeing things he shouldn’t—things from beyond the grave.
Kris Waldherr effortlessly spins a sweeping and atmospheric gothic mystery about love and loss that blurs the line between the past and the present, truth and fiction, and ultimately, life and death.
Set in Victorian England, this is a tale of two tragic love stories and the mystery surrounding a chapel hidden in the woods. Robert Highstead is called upon to photograph his famed poet cousin when he passes away because he is a daguerreotype. When he travels to Oxford his family home, he finds more than a deceased cousin. There is a story behind a locked hidden chapel that is a source of contention for Isabelle, the niece of his deceased cousin’s dead wife. To receive an inheritance left to her, she has to deal with this locked chapel.
This was a hard read for me as the pacing was extremely slow and not a lot to move the story forward. With that said, those who like Gothic novels may feel differently. Give it a shot.
Reviewed by: Linda C.
