4.25 stars.

I LOVED the majority of this book. I'm a sucker for gothic style writing and the creep factor was strong in this one, both from the setting and the characters. The story unfolds in a slow and strange way that I found interesting and I loved the little infusions of folk lore, history, and science. The writing was very good, save a tendency toward a few repetitious word and phrase choices.

The characters are well-written, vibrant and, for the most part, highly disturbing. I liked that...though Virgil was his own special kind of ick factor.

I will admit that I didn't really click with the opening pages, but things got good for me once Noemi arrived at High Place. Beyond this, the bulk of the story was fun and unnerving in a good balance. I never quite had a full handle on what was happening, but I liked what was revealed along the way. It's a peeling onion type of story and I appreciated how well that was organized through the narrative.

Like the beginning, I was less impressed with the ending, which was a serious bummer. I thought it was really going to end on a bang (and there is some good movement in the plot towards the end that I thought was great), but the wrap up made it feel like the intensity just unraveled in the end. I was torn in my rating because of the ending. The majority of the read was a 4.5 star for me, but that darned ending did pull things more toward 4 star territory.