REVIEW: Eloise by Judy Finnigan

Genre: Psychological Fiction/Occult Fiction

First Published: September 13, 2013

Good day, Congress!

In this week’s review I will be sharing my thoughts on Judy Finnigan’s 2013 debut novel, Eloise. It is a book that I’ve thrifted a long time ago, but have only read recently. Let me explain why I purchased a copy of this novel.

“What secrets did she take to her grave?”, it said on the cover as I picked up this chunky hardbound with the intriguing cover design from a pile of assorted clearance-priced books. I flipped its cover and read the synopsis that was printed on the inside of the cover flap.  Intrigued, and further delighted upon seeing the inexpensiveness printed at the back cover, I purchased the book along with several of Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb’s books—and left it collecting dust in my shelf until a few years later, today.

Well…not really until today. I’ve started to read the book days after buying it, but it was also around that time that I’ve became taken with J.D. Robb’s In Death Series. I remember completely putting this read off as all I thought about was the fast-paced romantic suspense that was the In Death series. Craving for that theme I then lost interest in  Eloise.

Finally, it was high time that I picked up where I left off. I had no lingering feelings from the last book that I read, and I was here for it. So, without any expectations I read Eloise, and boy did I not put that book down. It captured me hook, line, and sinker. My heart hurts just thinking about it.

I felt mad, frustrated, and heartbroken reading this book. My investment in it, I just now realized, is summarized as frustration and helplessness for Cathy’s situation and sympathy and anguish for Eloise’s demise. The whole afternoon that I was seated cross-legged, reading page after page, I couldn’t catch a break as I felt agitated with Cathy’s internal struggle of keeping her family together, specifically her husband who has an ugly habit of patronizing her, while ominous dreams involving her recently passed friend plagued her. Then there was Eloise. Beautiful, bright, theatrical, and bodacious in life; mysterious, sorrowful and frightened in death. Even in the dawning of her inevitable early death she was shining to the world. Albeit, in make believe hope and optimism.

Set in Cornwall, a quiet county in Southwestern England, Eloise sets a tone of gothic mystery that gets tragic as you read through.  It sets the sullen mood that mirrors the tragedy that was apparently the truth to Eloise’s life just as Cathy’s love for the place reflects her investment in Eloise’s death.

The conflict revolves around both women as their roles as mothers and wives are taken into shaky grounds. Cathy, being a woman with a history of depression, struggles to figure out if her dead friend was really haunting her, or if she was truly slowly spiraling into depression prompted by self-guilt over Ellie’s death as insisted by her husband; While Eloise—apparition or hallucination—has left behind secrets she had kept buried throughout her lifetime, has sullied her relationship with her husband because of it and now could be the cause to the endangerment of her children.

As mentioned, it is not a fast-paced, thrilling novel like some of you might expect it to be judging from the cover. It will not leave you shaking in fear, bone deep in chills. Reading this with that expectation will most likely leave you disappointed. You might think it repetitive and dragging—that’s what I felt the first time. Even the narrator (Cathy) will seem boring to you.

Leave that standard behind before you dive in. I speak for my personal experience, and I can only say that this plotline is splendid.  I ended up with tears in my eyes as the height of it revealed an extra revelation that was just too heartbreaking for me to handle. And the denouement was bittersweet.

Where there any questionable scenes?

There has been a question that has been bugging me since Eloise started desperately asking—and sometimes forcing—Cathy to help her. If she can talk to her, then why not just tell Cathy her secret so that none of what had ensued happened? Up until this point, when I’m typing these words, I cited it as a plot hole of the novel. However, and going back to wondering whether she was truly an apparition or just a product of Cathy’s dwindling mental health, could it be that Eloise wasn’t truly haunting and that Cathy created her in mind? That would explain why she couldn’t tell Cathy the secret, because it was all purely Cathy’s instincts that told her there was something wrong, and that she needed to pursue and find out on her own. There are instances where it was hinted, although there are also others that support the theory of Eloise actually haunting. I will leave that your discretion.

My favorite character in this novel is Eloise even though she had very limited appearance as a ghost. It’s her tragic back story that has managed to move me to tears. She loved, she lost, and she died. Why didn’t she live a genuinely happy life?

As for Cathy, I sympathized with her. Her relationships were at stake in the process of helping her deceased friend arrive at peace. In her side of the story is where I felt the frustration—with people around suspecting her of losing her mind. Her husband, who is a psychiatrist, lords over her simply because of her history with depression. It frustrated me that any slight upset makes him suspicious and bristle with clinical diagnosis as if she wasn’t his wife.

Why was she still hanging with this man? I often asked in frustration. And yet I understood why she stayed with him. As much as he had a massive ego, he did in fact loved her as well. I wince at myself for it. Admittedly, I had decided to dislike him when I was reading the first few chapters of the book for his self-importance and disregard of her feelings. And though I believe he truly loves and cares about her, his self-righteousness is problematic.

No character in this book is perfectly good, which I find fitting as it makes them interesting.

This dramatic mystery will make you ponder over the matter of life. What secrets people keep, and what it takes to overturn a chance to live a truly happy life and miss the goodness that could’ve been lived with it. 

Final Rating: 5/5 (Recommended)

That’s it for this review, Congress. Don’t forget to follow me in my social media accounts, and if you want to support me, you can also buy me coffee. Links to the side of your screens.

Goodbye!