
My Darling Dreadful Thing
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jess Nesling
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By:
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Johanna van Veen
About this listen
Goodreads Most Anticipated Horror of 2024
Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.
Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.
Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.
Then, someone is murdered.
Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.
"A Sapphic seance of preternatural proportions, My Darling Dreadful Thing summons a stunning new literary voice to be reckoned with. Johanna van Veen reaches beyond the veil to conjure up a gothic shocker like no other."—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters
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Story
The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.
By: Johanna van Veen
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In the Lonely Hours
- By: Shannon Morgan
- Narrated by: Siobhan Waring
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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On a small island in a remote corner of northwest Scotland lies Maundrell castle, owned by its wealthy namesake family for centuries—until now. Edwina Nunn is shocked to learn a relative she never heard of has bequeathed the castle and its land to her. What awaits Edie and her teenage daughter, Neve, is even more startling, for the castle is home to a multitude of ghosts. Yet there's a strange beauty in the austere architecture and the eerie, bloody waters of Loch na Scáthanna, the Lake of Shadows.
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Amazing Narration
- By Tara P on 08-02-24
By: Shannon Morgan
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The Unmothers
- By: Leslie J. Anderson
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy. When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.
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Beautifully raw writing
- By Sophia Camphorst on 11-20-24
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A Mask of Flies
- By: Matthew Lyons
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin–a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death. Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
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Beautifully written
- By Janet on 03-31-25
By: Matthew Lyons
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Victorian Psycho
- By: Virginia Feito
- Narrated by: Anna Burnett
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze.
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meh
- By Pamela Y. S. on 02-13-25
By: Virginia Feito
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So Thirsty
- By: Rachel Harrison
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity.
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Weak Ending
- By Jennifer on 10-09-24
By: Rachel Harrison
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A Good House for Children
- A Novel
- By: Kate Collins
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon a time Orla was: a woman, a painter, a lover. Now she is a mother and a wife, and when her husband Nick suggests that their city apartment has grown too small for their lives, she agrees, in part because she does agree, and in part because she is too tired to think about what she really does want. She agrees again when Nick announces with pride that he has found an antiquated Georgian house on the Dorset cliffs—a good house for children, he says, tons of space and gorgeous grounds. But as the family settles into the mansion—Orla finds herself unsettled.
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Descriptively haunting
- By gingerlily on 02-15-24
By: Kate Collins
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The Dark Man
- Graveyard Classified, Book 1
- By: Desmond Doane
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Ford Atticus Ford, former lead ghost hunter on the hit paranormal reality show Graveyard: Classified, has more than a few regrets - especially after young Chelsea Hopper was attacked by a demon . . . on live television. Assisting police departments by conducting paranormal investigations and uncovering buried clues now provides him with an ounce of redemption, but it will never be enough. With the show cancelled and his reputation destroyed, Ford sets out to avenge little Chelsea, and save his own soul - if he can.
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could be scarier
- By Melodie Thompson on 06-18-19
By: Desmond Doane
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The Night Guest
- By: Hildur Knútsdóttir, Mary Robinette Kowal - translator
- Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal
- Length: 2 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same—have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night.
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Interesting & creepy
- By Jaimie Welbourn on 09-20-24
By: Hildur Knútsdóttir, and others
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House of Hunger
- By: Alexis Henderson
- Narrated by: Jeanette Illidge
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation are all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper seeking a bloodmaid. Though she knows little about the far north—where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service—Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery.
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Definetely was a letdown.
- By LPST on 02-07-23
By: Alexis Henderson
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The Haar
- By: David Sodergren
- Narrated by: Mhairi Morrison
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Muriel McAuley has lived in the Scottish fishing village of Witchaven all her life. She was born there, and she intends to die there. But when an overseas property developer threatens to evict the residents from their homes and raze Witchaven to the ground in the name of progress, all seems lost . . . until the day a mysterious fog bank creeps inland.
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The protagonist
- By Alyssa Scholler on 08-25-24
By: David Sodergren
What listeners say about My Darling Dreadful Thing
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- Tracy
- 04-29-25
All the Gothic Goodness!
This novel is absolutely saturated with gothic goodness, and for the most part it is an enjoyable read for fans of the genre. As is the case with too many horror novels, though, the ending was lackluster. The story is a slow burn, creating the expectation that something intriguing will ultimately happen to horrify or, at least, unnerve the reader. No such luck, though, and the final chapters of this books are simply dull, the landing botched. That said, everything else about this novel is absolutely on point, so I'm trying not to be too mad. The decaying estate surrounded by a treacherous bog mirroring the mental decay of its inhabitants...all great stuff. Fans of Turn of the Screw will delight in this story, which draws heavily from that classic. In addition, everything about this novel was made better by the exceptional narration of Jess Nesling.
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- Julien
- 10-31-24
Sapphic ghost
Beautiful, heartbreaking and haunting. Engrossed throughout the story, beautiful depictions of love, grief, death and what it means to live.
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- Ryan
- 11-27-24
In my opinion, wasn't the worst.
The story was pretty slow to start but was interesting enough to keep my attention long enough to finish it. It was fairly predictable, I feel the narrator did a decent job, it was cartoony or too animated at times, I felt. But overall it was not too bad. Not a bad book to pass the time with.
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- Arlene Allen
- 03-08-25
Outstanding Writing
I absolutely loved this gothic queer romance. The plot is so easy to get sucked into and the flawed and morally gray characters are absolutely unforgettable.
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- Audrey Leiker
- 10-26-24
Tragically beautiful
I'm a sucker for a good ghost story, and this delivers on that. I'm also a sucker for a good sapphic story, which this also delivers on. It left me heartbroken, but not in a bad way. I'm going to revisit this many times I think.
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- BSBeach
- 08-01-24
Everything about this book was exceptional. I did not expect what happens!
I would love to see a series with this type of storyline. Maybe not this specific one but others with spirit companions.
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- Tyler Goble
- 03-16-25
Heartbreaking, but couldn’t put it down
A ghost story with twists and turns of love, lies, betrayal, murder, and sex all told from the inner monologue of a traumatized child-like main character, this book took hold of me from the first chapter. I truly couldn’t put it down and was questioning throughout the pages whether it was real or all in her imagination. Heartbreaking but so good.
The narrator’s performance was elegant and soft creating a picturesque atmosphere and really made listening a peaceful delight.
👻❤️👻 5 stars all around 👻❤️👻
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- Hanna Stoehr
- 10-08-24
Sapphic ghosts? Count me in.
From page 1 I was captivated. The relationship between these women crescendos early but builds to a darling love I will think of often.
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- Hollie Lace
- 12-14-24
Moody and Dark
I thought I’d be scared a little because I’m a baby but this book is more eerie and leaves you feeling kind of just…sick and heavy. This book gave me seasonal affective disorder lol. It wasn’t bad…it just…you want to shake it off at the end and move on with your life.
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- Cory Ponce
- 01-18-25
Title
I expected more horror. The story was quite slow and lacking. I kept waiting for something huge to happen.
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