Book Review - AN AMERICAN GOTHIC by Alice K. Arenz

Alice K. Arenz has written another tense and exciting mystery, and as usual, I really love her writing. I admire her skills at tale-weaving and keeping people guessing. So, Alice, when are you going to put up an online course???

Lysette Daniels (aka Lyssie) had been the caregiver for a child who died, and the paparazzi would give her no rest. She quit her job and fled to the Tan-Tar-A Resort on the Ozarks to get away from the horrid memories and the worse reporters. Fancy her surprise when her college roomie just happened to be there, Pier Foxxe.

Lyssie liked her former roommate, but she'd come to Tan-Tar-A to escape any notice and indulge herself in anonymity while she wrote the great American gothic novel. Still, Pier talks Lyssie into coming home with her to her mansion. Pier insists there will be all the time to herself she will want and need. There has been tragedy in the Foxxe family as well--the model for the FoxCo Toys' Dylan Doll series has gone missing and is presumed dead--plus Pier's father and brother went off a cliff, killing the father and badly injuring her brother.

The mansion (Foxxemoor) is huge and definitely inspiring for gothic-type novels. It's almost as foreboding as the spooky mansions of Rebecca and Jane Eyre. At Foxxmoor Lyssie's introduced to Pier's brothers, Ryan and Gray, identical twins, but with substantial personality differences that show up in their bearing and facial expressions. At least most of the time. She also meets Dee, the elusive and strange little girl of questionable parentage, but daughter of the missing Dylan Courtney.

I love the way Alice Arenz interspersed the mystery of Lysette and the Foxxes with Lysette's writing of the Gothic novel. I think you will too.

Grab it while it's hot at Amazon.