Book Review - The Haunting of Moscow House

As a fan of haunted house stories and a student of folklore, I was immediately drawn to Olesya Salnikova Gilmore’s latest painstakingly researched novel, set in a rambling mansion in post-revolution Moscow. It didn’t take long to realize that this book had a lot of potential. Not only was it the type of paranormal mystery that I love, full of family secrets and gruesome murders, it also served as a decent imitation of classic Russian literature, full of Pasternak’s doomed dalliances and Gogol’s deliciously haunted domiciles. With all that going for it, Gilmore should have been able to easily hit it out of the park. Unfortunately, Moscow House suffers from another commonly found element of Russian literature. Too much information. It’s longer than it needs to be and tends to include story lines that distract the readers from the main story. While the inclusion of American aid workers was historically interesting, it didn’t seem to further the haunting story line and seemed extraneous along with the flirtations of the countesses Irina and Lili. All in all though, it is an entertaining story that readers will likely enjoy if the subject matter interests them. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review. FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements: *5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. *4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is. *3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable. *2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending. *1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.