Goodreads Ireland discussion

This is the spoiler thread for the July to September 2018 Quarterly Iriash Read.

I must say that there was something of a lack of character development in this novel. How on earth did Roderick decide he was in love with Stella, a woman he barely knew? What was Pamela's health issue? Was her "situation" - instability, living with her brother- symptoms of the few options women had during that time period?
This bit from a review helps:
While a nonsense romance between Stella and Roddy – who fall in love in the space of a few polite meetings and now fear they will die if they may not marry – carries on, this sort of sublimation of love is simultaneously undercut by the gradual revelation that idealised women are a “shallow fraud”, and the process of icon-making murderous.
https://www.dublininquirer.com/2016/0...
As much as this book is about ghosts, it is about the powerlessness of women and the narrow lives they are forced to lead.
The ghost scenes are convincing and scary. I think Macardle does a good job with this aspect. I don't read many gothic novels but I can see why this one was so popular.