The Veil

by Rachel Harrison, Louisa Krause

Sally has recently left an unfulfilling job to volunteer at a living history museum, where she is assigned to the Death House. Every day, she dons Victorian mourning garb and describes traditional funeral services to tourists. It sounds depressing as hell, but for Sally, it’s less depressing than her tepid marriage to her childhood sweetheart.

This becomes all too clear when she accidentally travels through time and space to a liminal world where the ghosts of the living history museum haunt its grounds. There, she meets and falls hard for Victorian-era pretty boy Nathaniel. Their heady, romantic encounters douse Sally in the sad reality that her marriage is anything but and leave her tempted to join Nathaniel permanently in his realm.

Is Sally’s marriage literally a fate worse than death, or is there another way altogether?

Length: 47 minutes

Genres: Audiobook, Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance

Audible Audio

First published July 8, 2021

About the author

Rachel Harrison is the author of The Return, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica and Electric Lit. She lives in New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Karla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story 2 stars**
Audio 4 stars**
Narrator Louisa Krause

[Brandice · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Veil, Sally volunteers at a historical museum and finds herself meeting Nathaniel there, a man from the Victorian era. Will she abandon the life she knows with her high school sweetheart husband for him? As this Audible Original short story one is under an hour, I don’t regret listening to it but I found it to be (just) fine.

[Faerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐3.3


On a mission out of the slump, hoping a few short stories will ease it a little 🤞

[Sadie Hartmann]

I listened to this on the plane yesterday from San Diego to Seattle. It's about 40 minutes or so. A paranormal romance is the catalyst for the MC to learn about herself and take charge of her life. I didn't read what this was about before I jumped in; it was all a surprise.
I had fun with it.
It's not especially deep, the characters are a little underdeveloped and there is an insta-romance. I've seen what can be done in just a few pages so it's not because it's short, it's because (I believe) it's supposed to be playful and sweet.
Perfect for readers who love spooky love stories.

[Angyl · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl nearly kills herself to get some Victorian ghost d*ck from a man she's known for 5 seconds before realizing that actually self love is the answer

[Jo - •.★Reading Is My Bliss★.• · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story about a woman who volunteers at a funeral home she calls the 'death house.' Sally falls asleep in a hearse and wakes up in another century meeting Nathaniel. After sharing a life changing kiss with him they quickly realise they have feelings for each other. A ridiculous connection she has never experienced before.

Only thing is that she is already married to her high school sweetheart. Things are a bit blah in their relationship and she finds herself comparing her husband to the dashing Nathaniel who pledges to marry her and honor her for the rest of her life.

Now she has a choice, stay with her husband or make the ultimate sacrifice to be with Nathaniel?

An easy audio listen :)

[Naomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

On a positive note, it was free to listen to on Audible.

[Krystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Veil, is a short Audible Original, clocking in at only 47 minutes long. I’ve read Harrison previously, and her style evokes quirkiness with spooky undertones. There’s something a little unsettling, but not over the top obvious in the way she writes that I like. This one has a few issues with its tone, but overall it’s a fun short read.

Sally spends her time volunteering at a 19th century village style historical museum. Her assigned area is called the “death house”, where visitors can learn about Victorian funeral practices. I kept hoping to see more of the museum as a whole because I find places like this fascinating and I love touring them in person. I understand that this is a short story and for the sake of brevity there’s little world building here, but I kept wondering what this place was like beyond Sally’s small area.

Sally falls asleep at work and manages to time travel and meets a Victorian ghost, Nathaniel. The two believe they are destined soul mates, cue the violins, Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene, fireworks, but wait… There may be some minor complications here.

Sally is married, sure the marriage is lackluster, but HELLO. Also there is a small detail, Nathaniel is dead “as a door nail” and Sally is alive. Soooooo we may need a little more than your basic couple’s therapy here. There’s also the issue of her not being able to remain in his plane of existence for long periods of time due to her being alive. So Sally must decide is this love with Nathaniel worth dying for? Or is there a greater love out there that is worth living for instead?

The memorable ending made this the kind of “love” story with a twist, that had me wishing it was longer.

3.25 ⭐️

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should never have loved this story by Rachel Harrison. I’m not a fan of time travel (I’m talking about you, Outlander and 1632), and I don’t romanticize the past and imagine that the men of yesteryear were all sweetness and light as opposed to today’s great lummoxes. Anthony Comstock, Sir Randolph Churchill (Winston’s pater) and biographer John Boswell, both syphilitic womanizers; architect Stanford White, Charles II and John Wilkes (the British MP, not his namesake, the assassin) provide plenty of proof that life was worse back then, and that domestic violence and sexual harassment laws were passed for good reason.

But, while wildly romanticized, The Veil caught me at a time when I needed something sweet and light, and at 47 minutes, it was just perfect with a perfect ending and perfect narrator in Louisa Krause, to boot.

[Kurryreads (Kerry) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like a 14min audio listen (on 3.5x speed) so I’m not counting it as a book read even though it’ll count as one on here. I usually don’t do audio but I wanted to read everything Rachel Harrison has written and this was only available on audio!

[LostinaLibrary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wtf 💀

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great, for what it is - a nice little 45min snapshot from Rachel Harrison's brain.

[Brooke Kolek · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had an interesting premise indeed. But I feel was executed poorly. First off she's already married. 2nd all she and Nathaniel did was kiss, and they already loved each other. Excuse me, what? Then she agrees to murder herself to be with him. I thought to myself if he really loved her he wouldn't ask her to do that. Then the book ends with her sipping tea and not needing a man. I feel bad for Nathaniel waiting for her and she will never come back.

[Rachelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I knew I would do anything to go back, to spend as much time there as possible.
I mean who wouldn't want to walk around a nineteenth century village on a crisp autumn morning... it was magic."

Delightfully cute little story!

[Brittney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent short story, nothing in particular that jumped out.

[Mel Kenney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Veil is a quirky short story about Sally being in a boring hoe hum of a marriage. While volunteering at a haunted museum she started having dreams about a Victorian era man named Nathaniel. Nathaniel fell in love with Sally and wanted her to join the afterlife to become his "dutiful wife". It's interesting to listen to her decision making for life or death.

[Maggie ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings, I love Rachel Harrison's books but this one didn't give me the usual vibes, humour and creepiness. Maybe it was because I experienced it as an audiobook, or maybe it was because it was a too short story for me to feel anything strong towards it.
Still, it had its charm.

[Lisbet Hill · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be fair it was free on audible and less than an hour long. But like….. no thanks.

[Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was a short story basically to say the grass is not always greener on the other side lol but I love rachel’s writing I just wish there was like some little twist of something at the end to make it worth it.

[Iva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird but good but weird

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of the story was interesting, and the first five minutes had me really intrigued. I liked the idea of the narrator working in a little creepy death house in a historical re-enactment village. That was about it. From there, the tale went downhill. The narrator seemed to lack maturity and made rash decisions without any real reason behind it. There was a massive case of instalove, and I felt the whole story was too short and too rushed to sustain the plot.

A majority of the time I was listening, I found myself saying, "Wait...what?" I'd give it a pass.

[Peggy Norkus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good premise, ridiculous execution.

[Gareth Is Haunted · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mehhh. A ghost story that's a love story which turns out to be more about self discovery.

[Natalie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

November 2023
Audiobook edition
36m 40s (1.3x speed)

Another on for the Tram ride gacha list. Audible plus under an hour.

Cheating. I despise cheating. Ghost, time travel or what, still cheating, still acknowledged the partial guilt of cheating and going into bigamy. It felt very insta-love with Nathanial, there wasn't much chemistry, it just felt she was looking for any willing guy to move on from her high school sweetheart. This one was essentially Alice in Wonderland goes victorian, ending in a choice of the same life or death. I'm not sure about Sally's realization. It could be genuine or maybe the result of what would happen if she admitted to cheating. Also 'most agreeable wife' I'd run too.

[Kira Simion · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 short stars rounded up (up because of the narrator).

See this had at least more of a believable excuse for accidental cheating (as opposed to A Love Letter from Whiskey) because there’s a fantasy aspect where she thought she was asleep lol. Otherwise once she started believing it was actually real then she was choosing to be bad.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[jessicajlovesbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story was fine for what it was. It was definitely worth a listen, but wasn’t anything that’s going stick with me for a while.

[Krystle Krystlesbookclub · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's too short, I need more to this story to really get into it

[Mallory (onmalsshelf) Bartel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this after the author brought up in a book club discussion 2022.

Had promise, but needed a little more development.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is so cute and more importantly, empowering. I'll never shut up about it- Rachel Harrison is a girl's girl. She is the comfy, witchy, badass feminist author of my dreams. I thought this short story was going in a straight-forward direction and then it shifted right at the end as the MC reaches a sort of enlightenment, and I was so here for it! The audiobook was only about 45 minutes and free on Audible, and I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen, whether you're a big RH fan like me or just want to get a taste test of her writing style!