About The Book:

Pages: 314

Genre: Romance, Fiction

Publisher: Raven Books

Format I read it in: Hardcover

Rating: ★★★★

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On a blistering summer day in 1968, nine-year-old Tommy vanishes without a trace from Coram House, an orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Some say a nun drowned him, others say he ran away. Or maybe he never existed. Fifty years later, his disappearance is still unsolved.

Struggling true crime writer Alex Kelley needs a fresh start. When she’s asked to ghostwrite a book about the orphanage – and the abuses that occurred there – she packs up her belongings and moves to wintry Burlington, Vermont.

As Alex tries to untangle the conflicting stories surrounding Tommy’s disappearance, her investigation takes a chilling turn when she discovers a woman’s body in the lake. Alex is convinced the death is connected to Coram House’s dark past, even if local police officer Russell Parker thinks she’s just desperate for a career-saving story. As the body count rises, Alex must prove that the key to finding the killer lies in Tommy’s murder, or risk becoming the next victim.

My Thoughts:

“Coram House” was a very atmospheric and enjoyable read. We are instantly introduced to the creepiness of this orphanage and get a feel of what it used to be to live there with the sisters and priests. When a true crime writer, Alex Kelley is offered a submission as a ghost writer, to cover the story about the history of the house, she accepts. 

“And that’s the thing you have to understand. The years we spent there. You can leave Coram House but you can’t leave it behind. Not all of it. The worst of it you carry with you. It becomes part of you. And sometimes I worry you pass it on.”

Alex is not in the best head space, though. Her husband recently passed away. And her last book came with a lot of negative press, because she managed to cause a lot of damage to people whilst trying to investigate and find the truth. 

So the work to write about Coram House seems to arrive at the perfect time and give her a chance to start fresh and get lost in paperwork again. But the more she digs, the more secrets she starts to uncover, and it’s obvious someone doesn’t want her there. Then, people start getting murdered and she always ends up somehow near the events. 

“How few truly perfect moments we’re given in this life. And those are the ones that rip the heart from your chest later. The ones to lock away the tightest.”

The pages were flooding with suspense. And I wanted to find out the answers as much as Alex did. Did the little boy, Tommy, drown? And if he did, who killed him?

The only reason this book didn’t make the 5-star mark is the ending. It’s always the ending… I predicted the ending somewhere around the middle of the book, and felt slightly deflated on the big reveal. It feels like that particular trope has been used very often recently. Or maybe I’ve been unlucky in picking similar books, but it felt like something I’ve seen before. Aside from the ending, I enjoyed the book throughout. It kept me engaged and wanting more after each chapter.

About the Author:

Bailey Seybolt grew up in New York City and studied literature at Brown University and creative writing at Concordia University.

She has worked as a travel writer in Hanoi, a tech writer in San Francisco, and many writerly jobs in between. (Fun fact: She also writes novels)

But whether she’s writing fiction or SaaS case studies, she believes good storytelling is the key to success.

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