Synopsis:

The dark elegance of Anne Rice’s THE WITCHING HOUR meets the lush parallel worlds of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN series.

Reeling after her best friend’s suicide, Ada Walker falls under the spell of the collective subconscious, the EVENING’S LAND, searching for Faye’s soul with a rakishly hypnotic ghost named Christopher.

Richly preternatural and spine-tinglingly erotic, EVENING’S LAND is an exploration of love, loss and loyalty that will haunt you long after the last page is turned.

I instantly fell in love with the cover of this book, as you undoubtedly have too.

I personally don’t think the synopsis for this book gives you an accurate idea of what to expect, above all else: this book is weird.

It explores themes like death, friendship, lovers and parental relationships but also… ghosts.

The author masterfully tells this story from the perspectives of several different characters, across different timelines, and still manages to pull it all together that it makes sense and enhances the story rather than over complicating things.

That said, the style of writing in this book is a lot more poetic and surreal than I’d usually read – by which I mean that I normally can’t finish a book that doesn’t get to the point pretty quickly, but this book was an exception! This book is all about the writing for me, it just swept me up from the start.

I’ll admit it now, a lot of the point of this book went right over my head – I can attribute at least part of this to the raging fever I had last weekend while I was reading in bed (this book is so trippy, I can’t think of a better time to have read it).

Ada, the main character, is trying to get her life back together following some pretty traumatic events (all of the trigger warnings). It’s not really going so well as her parents edge closer to divorce and she finds out that her neighbours have connections to a Satanist cult.
She’s not the perfect protagonist by any means, with plenty of her own weaknesses, but she has a unique view of the world that was wonderful to read.
My favourite character was Mary, Ada’s mother – she’s a woman who knows her own power and wants to be happy, but she also understands the meaning of honouring her marriage vows. Obviously, she’s in a far-fetched situation but her predicament is a very human one and I found that her chapters grounded the story a lot when Ada was dealing with more otherworldly matters.

I don’t really want to give much away, given how mysterious the synopsis is and how enjoyable the ride was, so I’ll just tell you to keep an open mind when reading this book and roll with it- you’ll be glad you did!