Lacrimore

by S.J. Costello

Sivre Sen is a spiritual medium who's lost her faith. Though it's been years since the epidemic that swept the mainland and changed her life, she has yet to find the answers—or closure—that she's looking for. When she's summoned to conduct the funeral rites for a reclusive scholar, the unusual circumstances give her hope that maybe, finally, she'll find the answers she needs.

Far from the mainland, on a small island in the middle of a lake, stands Lacrimore, centuries old and wreathed in grim legends. But something much darker than legends thrives within its walls, waiting to lay claim to the house's inhabitants. As Sivre rediscovers her place in the world, she'll need all of her newfound strength to dig her fingers into the monstrous foundation of Lacrimore and expose the secrets it is built upon.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Gothic, Audiobook, Novella, Book Club, Fiction

182 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2020

About the author

Silas J. Costello is a foolish gothic protagonist moonlighting as a New York City-based storyteller, and author of the novel Lacrimore.

Dealing in a variety of mediums, SJ's work ranges from illustrating comics to delivering lectures in historic spaces. His work draws heavily upon long-held fascinations with 19th century American history, ghost stories, and the memories that settle in forgotten places.

Reviews

[Lisa Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

SJ Costello's Lacrimore is beautifully written and haunting.

I have to admit, though, that I didn't enjoy this one as much as I hoped I would. I've grown to realize I'm just not a fan of Gothic horror because how many times are we going to tell the same story of a young, lonely woman being gaslit/gaslighting herself in a creepy setting? I'm honestly over it.

But if you like Gothic stuff, than this one is one of the best-written I've every come across.

I rated this one 4 out of 5 stars.

[Cami · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

I think this was a case of expecting an entirely different story than the one I got. It's not bad by any means, and S.J. Costello has a way with words, but after the 90-page mark, it became a cliche haunted house with an evil entity more than anything else and ended up losing its fantastical charm.

[Brandee Taeubel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out this review and more on The Quill to Live!

Bite-sized gothic tales are appropriate for light summer reading lists, as long as you like things dark and twisty all year round as I do. Before you jump into warmer water, dip your toe in the cold lake and mystery surrounding Lacrimore by S.J. Costello.

A medium named Sivre travels across the lake to a desolate and forgotten house named Lacrimore. When she arrives at the door, Sivre discovers that the man she is supposed to perform funeral rights for is still very much alive. With boats back to the mainland running scarce, Sivre decides to stay at the foreboding home until she can properly carry out her duties. The house and its inhabitants are a dreary bunch, and Sivre will be forced to confront her beliefs as the house seeks an opportunity to expand its power to anyone willing to listen.

With its small page count, Lacrimore keeps a quick pace so its story can be told in its entirety. We don’t get to learn too much about our characters, especially the supporting characters who feel like blips on my radar after keeping my focus on the main three—Sivre, Lalichai, and Vandorus. This is a plot-driven story that delivers a lot within its ~180 pages, but I was eager to learn more about the epidemic that set the stage and the darkness clinging to the decrepit house.

Lacrimore is the first book I’ve read where the content and themes feel shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the story, the mainland was ravaged by an epidemic that the three main characters were involved in via their work as doctors or a medium. All three characters were changed by the role they played and it’s interesting to see how they come away from such a horrific event. What I enjoyed the most though was Costello’s commentary on how tragedy creates an abundance of nameless and forgotten people. Lacrimore on its desolate little island became the dumping ground for the sick, and so many were disconnected from the world and sent away to die. Costello treats the ones who survived as a forgotten group as well. They are alive but on the other side of a traumatic experience where some find themselves cast out from society and others suffering alone in their unresolved pain.

I want to point out the disorienting perspective shifts in this book because it really adds to the creepy atmosphere at Lacrimore. As the story changed from moment to moment between characters without any clear delineation, it felt like the house was peaking into its own corridors to check on its inhabitants. It popped in to spy on Sivre holed up in her room, then shifted to Fel wandering the damp underground, then quickly over to Vandorous who is pouring over his books. It took a while to get used to the abruptness of it all, but I started to dig the shifts because it felt like the house had eyes everywhere. No place in the house felt safe, and I was forced to watch the characters navigate inside its bones.

Lacrimore is a nice way to get a dose of darkness without fully immersing yourself in a big mystery. S.J. Costello provides us with a neat, little horror story that can be easily enjoyed in one sitting so as to not fully blot out the summer sun.

Rating: Lacrimore - 7.0/10

[ria · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a surprising find, and one that i enjoyed a lot. it managed to keep me fixed in place and continue reading when i’ve been dnf’ing books left and right. while this is short and quite slowburn for the first half, the writing and the eerie, haunted atmosphere it created worked incredibily well. that, mixed with the house itself - an organic, haunted creature, kept alive by the tragedies and horrors committed within its walls (“Does a place remember its history?” Lalichai asked, his voice low. “Can it hunger for legacy, too? Just like us?”)- is what i think to be the highlights of this book. there are many questions still left unanswered, but that didn’t bother me as much. i do, however, wish we’d gotten a bit more backstory on the characters especially the main 3 - with vandorus, although understanding his motives and his past, it was hard sometimes to truly resonate or hate his actions; for lalichai it was the same, although i think his character takes more shape in the last part. that being said, i did enjoy this immensely, a great read for the month of october.

[Sr.Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memories that settle in forgotten places.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a secret treasure of a book! The prose is solemly beautiful, the characters facinately complex and compelling (very flawed but you love them), the world building subtle but rich. It's a great homage to the victorian gothic with a more fantasy/speculative edge.

It was a bit of a slow burn and it by no means answers all your questions. I happen to like those traits in books, but I know for some it isn't their jam. This is a read for those who love the texture of words and to be caught up in characters and worlds. Not so much for fans of big, fast paced plots.

The book is like Lacrimore itself--a quiet, mysterious island alone on a lake of a big world. But if you like being captured by a dark tale for a time, this book is for you.

[melis · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

Holy hell this was good.

I'd been looking forward to reading this for a bit now, but I didn't expect myself to get through it in only two days. The story and characters gripped me in the best way, what can I say?

Lacrimore is amazing. From the descriptive prose that sets an eerie nautical scene in the beginning, to the extremely compelling character relationships at the end, this book was wonderfully written and extremely well executed.

I'm very much into smaller-scale stories, personally, and Lacrimore was unique storytelling and small-scale all in one. By small scale I mean the story and the page count, I tore through this book so fast and the last few pages were so action packed and wonderful that it was a blurry but very fitting race to the final page. I love that this book didn't try to be more than it was. Costello could have gotten caught up in the backstories of these characters, but I really really enjoyed that we never fully get the whole story. I just... really like this book and this writing and these characters.

Sivre and Vandorus' relationship was so incredible, oh my god. Vandorus is exactly my type of character and I loved any time he was in a scene. Dubious doctor consumed by his work and willing to go to any lengths to get results? Coupled with a medium who has been faking her faith and her abilities whose primary goal is to commune with her dead wife? I'm sold. All the characters were wonderfully balanced and fleshed out, I really liked when we'd get small parts from Dege and Ciro and Fel's point of views, as well. For real though, Vandorus was incredible. I was enjoying him as a stuffy academic but the scene with Ciro's death and the way he didn't even think to save him, only to use Ciro to accomplish his own goals was so visceral and powerful and tense and I adored it. Not to mention the entire bit at the end where the house merges with his psyche and Sivre nearly gives up on him but essentially carries him out and saves them both... god. My exact favorite trope of the protagonist saving the bad guy against their will, holy heck. Oh also, this book has a lighthouse as a narrative device, so, it's perfect in my books.

Speaking of the house itself though... for a bit I was really interested in the fact that this story seemed to not have a main antagonist, and I was down with that, I was enjoying reading about the characters dealing with grief and these people who were forced together learning to coexist. Then, I started to realize the house was the antagonist, and I got even more invested, because oh my god, I love an evil house so so much. Lacrimore being a character and a living being in its own way was so enthralling, it made all the paragraphs of description of its visage so much more meaningful.

The ending was wonderful, as well, and very appropriate for the book. I love vague endings a lot, and felt that Sivre and Vandorus abandoning Lacrimore for good was the best way to go. Sivre's final act of turning the lantern on to make sure the house was truly empty was also very nice, and I really enjoyed her character the whole way through so much. Flawed female protags are so very rare, and Sivre was a delight to read.

I'm going to have this as a 4.5* for the time being, but I already find myself wanting to reread it to pick up on more things I missed and fully appreciate the narrative and the themes of dealing with grief. Gosh, this book was good. I have a feeling I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.

[Annabel_Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Excellent first novel, and very well reviewed for an independent endeavor, but that being said it still could have done with another draft. The language was purposefully stilted which suited the world building and genre, but felt forced and clunky at times--even the great gothics of old did this, but it just felt /too/ forced here and there, especially in the first couple of chapters.

On the author's blog they mention that it's not a complex story, and doesn't need to be long and on one hand I agree wholeheartedly--at the midway point I figured out that I wasn't reading a pastiche of Ann Radcliff or Wilkie Collins, this has more in common with the novellas of Lovecraft, Shelley, and Poe. Eerie, sensationalist, focusing on societal anxieties writ large in a small space, a House That Lives...it's a short book because that's the genre. On the other hand, I want to disagree--I think a longer work would have been more time to further flesh out the characters (each secondary character is a sharp portrait, and worthy of more despite serving their purpose), or more details on the fantasy world they inhabit--even more scenes of getting lost around Lacrimore itself. A bit more detail and softer prose and it could have been a nautical (it's a lake, not an ocean, but still) Shirley Jackson.

Still, it wasn't lacking more or less than most first novels are, and the attempt at tackling gothic prose is not an easy one--a royally impressive attempt for a first time writer, and overall the story was spooky, well delivered, and enjoyable.

I highly suggest giving the author a look, they illustrate their characters and also have another story ongoing, a ghost story at sea in the form of a webcomic that it quite good. I hope to see more from Costello in the future, and would love to see this become one of the trending indie's to get picked up by a major publisher, and see it go through one more re-write with an editor that specializes in the gothic. I'd pay for it again in a hardcover, but with fingers crossed that the author would grace a new edition with more of their artwork and details of the world it takes place in.

[Remy Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love spooky houses, boy do I have the book for you!

I bought this immediately after I saw it was available, having followed the author on Tumblr for several years - and I'm very glad I did, because it's really, really good. This is one of the few books I read for fun that I ended up annotating as I went (unfortunate English major habit), because I am frankly obsessed with the turns of phrase this author dreamed up. I think the specific moment I decided this book was right up my alley was when Lacrimore is described as rising "like a lament" in the first chapter.

I was really surprised by how much I liked and cared for every character by the end. Especially Lalichai and Vandorus, who both ended up being very beautifully complicated in a way that I wasn't anticipating at the beginning (I liked them originally because I thought they were funny, and later liked them more completely). I liked Sivre so much that I've gone through more than half a dozen versions of this sentence trying to describe her - she's very deeply human in a way that many authors struggle to capture in a fictional character, and it makes her shine as a protagonist.

On a separate note to the human characters: the house itself really does feel like its own character right from the start. The atmosphere is incredible, with the author balancing the level of detail given so that it truly feels like a real house instead of just a description of one.

Like other reviewers have already said, this is definitely kind of a slow-burn on the plot and much more character-driven. Also, while I definitely would love to have more of it, I thought it ended in a very good place for the themes of the book. There's a lot of things left unanswered, but I think those are for us as readers to reckon with in Lacrimore's wake.

[Maia H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I appreciated the imagination and gothic atmosphere of this book, it unfortunately didn't work best for me.

You can tell Costello has a vast and wonderful vocabulary, but the writing here is very purple prose and runs into some redundancy that would be fixed with a few more rounds of editing. It feels like a 2nd or 3rd draft. I did love their way of describing the house with human body parts like "rib", "teeth", "eyes", etc. It made the house feel like a sentient entity.

The characters, though they feel different enough from each other, need some more depth, especially the side characters. Lalichai is a very interesting one but also not that developed imo. And the horror elements weren't super scary to me - and maybe it wasn't supposed to be scary - but I felt like such a hostile house with designs to trap souls could feel even more creepy and vicious. I didn't feel a shred of fear or dread throughout this book that is so prevalent in gothic stories.

Overall, I still applaud Costello for coming up with a unique and interesting concept. I just wish it was executed more deftly. With some editing and expansion on the characters/world, Lacrimore would be a great story; I see the bones of one somewhere in it. The author has potential and I'd love to see more novels from them in the future.

[casablanca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lacrimore is a genuinely gothic tale which touches on grief, the histories which we attempt to forget, and a place touched by both of these things. The setting itself is a character in this book and I found myself truly charmed by the deeply gothic nature found rooted throughout it.

I have read Lacrimore a number of times, the first being in 2020 shortly after it came out. This book utterly revived my interest in reading. It had been quite a period of time since I had picked up anything and finished it. And yet, I read all of Lacrimore in one sitting. I could not be torn away. I was utterly entranced.

Those who are not accustomed to gothic horror may find the pacing towards the beginning to be slow, but will likely find the world-building gripping enough to endure it. I promise that the book creeps further and further into the horrific as the tale continues and it picks up significant speed in the final portion. That final, sudden twist left me enthralled. I will always love a setting which is so utterly alive.

Thank you to S.J. Costello for this fascinating piece of gothic literature. I hope to see more work in a similar vein from them in the future!

Content Warnings: terminal illness, death, needles, medical malpractice, implied suicide, mild gore

[Julia O'Connell]

Sivre Sen has all the social standing of a medium within a society that has been preoccupied with death ever since a devastating plague epidemic swept the land. But Sivre has a secret: she’s never actually spoken to a spirit … until now. A vision of a reclusive scholar leads her to Lacrimore, an imposing mansion perched on the cliffs of an island deep in the middle of a lake. But when she arrives, Sivre finds the elderly Lalichai still alive, tended to by the taciturn Dr. Vandorus, who is supposed to be in exile for his ethically questionable experiments in pursuit of answers about the boundary between life and death. Though her services are not yet needed, Sivre decides to stay at Lacrimore and wait to discover why she has been called there. Each person at Lacrimore is seeking answers about their past or their future. But the house has an agenda of its own. 

See my full review: https://www.thegothiclibrary.com/revi...

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An elegant, strange, and lyrical work.

Utterly unique, I have never read anything quite like it. It reminds me a little of Patricia McKillip, a tiny bit of LeGuin, but mostly is itself. Costello evokes the strangeness of the titular haunted house in a way that evokes more fascination than dread. It's not scary, just gothic and pretty. The tale is very isolated. The house and island are an unchanging, dark backdrop, and there are few moving parts to the plot, which revolves around three main characters and their relationship to the house, as well as their relationships to death. The other characters are distinct enough to be recognizable, but the limited plot neither permits nor calls for extensive characterization nor interaction. The conclusion is elegant and satisfying. Definitely worth a read.

[Mary Louisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was really lovely, especially in the beginning. Great prose and very intentional word choice to shape the gothic vibes. It has a lot of great elements, but it was too slow for me. Somehow the story felt extremely dense yet so little happened.

Honestly…I didn’t enjoy this all too much, but that’s more to do with my taste than anything. Gothic horror is what I was put on this earth to read, so I really thought this would deliver. I bought it as soon as I saw the play on lacrimose and the A Series of Unfortunate Events-esque cover. It just didn’t deliver on those fronts. I didn’t get a spooky strange avant-garde aesthetic from it, nor did I connect with the characters.

You probably won’t like this if you seek out riveting plots or any sort of high stakes. But it’s nice writing is worth mentioning, and I can definitely see someone else loving this.

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It's a gothic horror novella that slowly descended into the horror. I actually liked the ending, and though Sivre slipped out of character once or twice, the end felt much true to her character.

Pros:
- Lovely narrator for audio book
- Protagonist, Sivre, was an interesting character and I enjoyed her struggle of faith.
- The small cast of characters were interesting.
- Hints of the greater world were intriguing.

Cons:
- Leapt between character POV and difficult to tell whose head I was in at times.
- Had some lovely phrasing, but overall was a little too extravagant and over the top.
- The doctor (Vandorous) was a bit stereotypical and predictable.
- Wish we'd gotten to know more of the other three on the island.

[AnyoneWestofBree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Lacrimore in a single setting because I simply couldn’t put it down. The beautiful, evocative language slides you into a story set in a world that feels like the perfect setting for the crumbling titular building, the true main character of the text. The incredible people who come and go throughout it struggle with loss, the weight of history, the painful choices we make, and the way we wrestle with memory. Reading it, you smell damp sea air and rotted wood in a way that is unsettling and beautiful all at once, and as someone who can be very finicky about paranormal media, I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

[iamgaarden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this for a reading challenge (gothic fantasy), and while I'm not a fan of this genre, I'm glad I read it.

I really like the prose. It's sometimes poetic in its retrospectiveness.

I like that we have a scholar, a doctor and a medium stuck in the same old creepy mansion because it sets an interesting foundation for the question: What happens when the spirit leaves the body?

I got really invested in it!

But then halfway the creepy horror elements really kicked in and, sadly, my investment dwindled. It's not you, it's me. Not my genre...

But if it's your genre, this 184 pages creepy and at times really gorgeous prose might be for you.

[AndPeggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel the story was spread too thin over the multiple POVs, and that it undermined the internal struggles of the characters as most weren’t given quite enough interiority in a relatively short book with 3+ POVs plus journal entries that effectively serve as another. There were elements that were enjoyable - the mysterious island and the inhabitants it drew too it; including the owner who the main character believes visited her a dream to request funeral rights even though he isn’t dead; and the household staff who all work on the island as an alternative to imprisonment or banishment - but they didn’t hold a strong enough draw for me.

[Tiffany PSquared · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Lacrimore was going to be one of my spooky season books on October 1st. Hoopla recommended it to me and I have been using the audiobook to get me to and from work this past week. Despite a moderately slow start, the story built steadily until, by the end, I was satisfied that I had not only picked out a solid haunted house story for my last book of spooky season, but that even outside of Lacrimore itself, events were strange enough to stand all on their own. Four stars for this ghostly gothic novel.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novella. It had that isolated and creepy setting that I love to immerse myself in, with a kind of cosmic horror-ish vibe (or more actually the condensed horror of human action). Perfectly atmospheric and gives just enough world-building to understand the society that surrounds the events that take place. Honestly, it really reminded me of video games released in the 'The Dark Pictures Anthology' and would make an epic setting for one of those stories. Also feels like a story that will remain in the back of my mind as horrors often have that effect.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the prose of the novel to be absolutely beautiful and thoughtful throughout the entirety of the text. Unfortunately for me, the last 5-6 pages, while still beautiful, felt a little light- almost empty of any profound meanings or conclusions.

The author had something magnificent, only to realize a deflated and insignificant ending. Overall, still worth reading.

Hopefully they do give it another shot, as the talent the author has is incredible.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This just didn't grip me the way I expected it to, and I ended up DNFing. I suppose I like the idea of gothic tales, but I keep DNFing them. Everything in this story is well-done, albeit a bit slow-paced. The writing style is great, the characters are suitable for a gothic etc, and it reminds me a little bit of the fantastic game Dredge. It just wasn't enough.

[Kelsey Lindsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the overall premise and how the characters were all realistic/flawed. Liked the horror fantasy vibes. Disliked the pacing: seemed very slow to get into the story at the beginning and then once the climax hit there was very little falling action. So flow was a little off for me. But liked the concepts and the conclusion.

[Shyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

In theory I should love this book. It's full of ghosts and rot. I adore a house that's alive.
But unfortunately the writing I struggled with. I do not enjoy when povs switch multiple times in a chapter without telling you. I took to glancing ahead to check who is speaking because it wasn't clear to me

[Lori M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a delicious book. It has just the right amount of Gothic horror to balance its quite tender exploration of death, grief, and the deep cost of silencing memory. I meant to savor it over a long weekend, but couldn’t stop reading!

[Fay Sangrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't bear to put this down, it drew me in so well. When I picked it up, I was looking for a book with the same "the house as an entity" kind of horror theme that I got from The Haunting Of Hill House - and I got exactly what I wanted in Lacrimore.

[PRL]

An interesting take on the classic gothic horror theme of an evil/possessed mansion. There's only a handful of characters plus the house. It's short and sweet, doesn't outstay its welcome and isn't bad for a debut novel.

[Nyx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, and eerie and haunting, with tons of finely layered intricate details to get lost in. Spooky houses, and grief, and how humans go through grief all covered in a well researched historical veil.

[Douglas Wensink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads as some dark, brooding fantasy set in an alternate universe.

In a world wrecked by a plague, mediums hold political and spiritual importance. In Lacrimore, a medium comes to visit a man that she believes to be dying. However, something more sinister lurks under the surface

[Elena · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had a lot of elements that I would usually appreciate but I felt that it wasn't enough. I didn't care very much for the characters, I felt like the plot was too tame and it might have been better if a couple of things were explored more at length. I found it a bit boring.