Gothictown by Emily Carpenter #bookreview #audiobook

Thank you to RB Media for the ALC and MBC Books, #partner, for the advanced copy of Gothictown in exchange for my honest review.

Publisher: Kensington / Recorded Books

Published: March 25, 2025

 

Summary:

A restaurateur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic town in Georgia.

The email message that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100 she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and some painful memories. Plus she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity.

After some phone calls and one hurried visit, Billie and her husband and daughter are officially part of the “Juliana Initiative.” The town is everything promised, and between settling into her lavish home and starting a new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss misgivings.

Yet those misgivings grow. There’s something about Juliana, something off-kilter and menacing beneath its famous Southern hospitality. No matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and whether, they’ll ever leave.

 

My thoughts:

I have long been a fan of Emily Carpenter’s books and was thrilled to find out she had a new book coming out. No one does Southern Gothic mystery as well as she does, and this book is proof positive of that!

This book was brimming with an underlining darkness and had a creep factor that I loved! It grabbed me from the get-go with the idea of New Yorkers buying a fixer-upper for $100 in a small Southern town post-pandemic. I mean…it sounds almost too good to be true, right? With a cast of characters that leave you not knowing if they can be trusted or not, a mayor that seems to be a little to beloved, Billie has some uneasy feelings…and maybe she should!

I could not put this one down, loving how the tension builds, the story becomes more disturbing, and the secrets start coming out. The twists were perfectly placed, and I did not see many of them coming!

 

Audio thoughts:

This was narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Cassandra Campbell, who does an amazing job bringing the story to life. She infuses just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed.

 

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