Within These Wicked Walls

Reviewer rating

Format reviewed: Audio
Ready by Nneka Okoye
8 hours

Within These Wicked Walls By Lauren Blackwood

This is the story of Andromeda, or Andi, who is a debtera, an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. Andi grew up on the street and was raised by a famous debtera named Jember. He was very strict with her. Andi has been hired by a very wealthy young man, Magnus, whose mansion needs to be cleansed. A debtera cleans the house by going room by room creating amulets to repel the spirits there. This is a mansion, so it is a big house. The problem is that the staff are going missing and creepy horrible things are happening, so Andi has to hurry.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book. The characters were interesting. Magnus and Andi were pretty much opposites. Magnus is very rich and Andi very poor, but those differences are what unexpectedly brings them together. However, Magnus has a girl friend who is a beautiful socialite and at first you think she is just stuck-up and mean, but she has some surprising depth. Also, Andi’s relationship with Jember was very strained, but it gets resolved in the story.

The reader gets a good sense of place, which is creepy but very interesting. The setting is a huge rambling mansion that seemed like part castle. There were so many rooms and closets and each had different hauntings. The religion and magic were interesting and worked well.

There were a few things that didn’t work so well. The ending was not as satisfying as many other parts of the story. For example, a lot of the characters die but somehow the outcome is a success. The reader is introduced to some horrors that I expected to play a role in the end, but they were never confronted. Also, Andi begins to reconcile with Jember, but then tricks him.

I listened to the audiobook version of the story. I liked the reader and overall thought it was a good story.

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