The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks: Magic, Madness or just a Mansion?

In this episode of Worlds Within, we explore The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks. While not fantasy, the atmosphere and creepy house were enough to make us interested. Did we stay interested? Tune in to find out! 

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Hosted by Alyssa Curtis & Ash Christine. Theme song by Magiksolo. Recording studio provided by Garden Groove 

Until next time, keep wandering - we'll see you in the next world!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Worlds Within, where story becomes space. We're your hosts, Alyssa and Ash, and every episode we explore fictional worlds that don't just live on the page, they pull you in, build themselves around you, and let you wander through them. This is a podcast for readers who don't just love books, they live in them. We dive deep into sensory storytelling, character perspectives, and the world-building mechanics that turn fiction into a fully immersive experience. Welcome, welcome to our next episode of Behind Closed Doors. Maybe we should have called this one accidentally spooky season, because today we are jumping genres a little bit into something a little more horror-lit with The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks. So ignore that thump from the attic. We have things to discuss.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Let's just be very clear. Spooky season is a state of mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

That's true. That's true. Oh, also, this adds to um our sub theme we called out last episode of Daughters with Dead Moms. Folks, we're four for four. But hey, we've moved out of the south. We did, we sure did.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Okay, well, let's get into this episode. Today, our hands are warming up with uh our tea. It is a uh an Earl Grey plot teaser today. Nice. Uh, the book is set in England, so we wanted something to reference that location while also acknowledging the mist and fog of our seaside town of Bly.

unknown 1:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So Freya Lyell is struggling to move on from her sister Stella's suicide five years ago. Visiting the bewitching Burn Hall, only a few miles from the scene of the tragedy, she discovers a portrait of Stella, a portrait she had no idea existed, in a house Stella never set foot in, or so she thought. Driven to find out more about her sister's secrets, Freya is drawn into the world of Burn Hall and its owners, charismatic artist Corey and his sinister, watchful mother. But as Freya's relationship with Corey crosses the line into obsession, the darkness behind the locked doors of Bern Hall threatens to spill out.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I love this synopsis.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Agreed. And that's what drew me to this book.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

For sure. I also love the cover art of this one.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, it's uh it's very simple, um, very bird-like. Um so shocking Alyssa loves it. Um, but I like again, this was just on a short list of like when I was researching, when we were researching house books. This is one that I I had seen. Um, but uh not something that had been on my I had never heard of this meaning at all.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

But the synopsis was so interesting, it feels really eerie. Um I think it sets an interesting vibe and made me want to read.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And then I got into it. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, first impression. The book reminded me of some like really classic gothic fiction. It is atmospheric. There's a lot of like vibey stuff happening. It's a strange house, strange people. Um, but I never felt like it was rising to some grand climax. Things were simultaneously happening, but like also nothing was happening. I felt like I was missing chapters sometimes because the pacing was just strange. Um, there were multiple POVs which were sometimes helpful, sometimes very distracting. I wish we had more for these characters and for these characters. So, first impression, kind of missed the mark for me.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah, I I spent the entire time. Uh it took me a long time to get through this book. If I were not reading it for the podcast, I would have DNF'd it. Ditto. Because I just nothing happened, nothing happened, nothing happened. And then everything happened. And it I will say that the twist was good. I I mean, yeah, I was like, okay, yeah. Like the I was sh surprised by that twist. Cool, thanks. But like I I just I I spent the whole time being like, I don't what what are we doing? Yeah, it was all the same thing happening over and over again, but like with no resolution, yeah. And and like it was just it was literally just it was like somebody put copy paste the whole time. Yeah. So and then changed a few things.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

There are some good things though. There are some things in the entire thing. There are some good things. Yes. Um, so let's talk a little bit about our characters. So we've switched up the format for this episode because um there's no fantasy elements in this. This is all this it's fiction, but it's there's no fantasy, there's no magical realism that is happening. I wish there were, I think it would have added to the story some. I think there was like supposed to be. Yeah. At one point I think I had highlighted like, is this magic or just madness? Like what is happening? But um, so we're gonna talk about our characters first because it is more character driven than it is like world-building driven. So Freya is our female main character who dreams of being a poet. She lost her sister by suicide uh allegedly five years ago, and her mother before that. So, like I said, we are four for four so far on Dead Moms this season. Um my note about Freya is she's also not very bright. Um, or perhaps she herself descended into some sort of madness. It's unclear, could be a little bit of both, but I just feel like much like my other BFF with a similar name, she's not very bright.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, I just got I was like, you're like, who? I was like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

It's Fayra. Y'all, it's Fayra. Literally, just switch, just just switch a couple letters. Just and stick with me forever.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, she just and it part of that I can you can chalk up, chalk up to grief. Like you've lost your mother at a very young age, and then you lose your sister in such a manner, and we come to find out that they're like their last conversation was I just wish you would go away and never come back. Like, I mean, the guilt of living with that is gotta be substantial. But like she also didn't feel very deep about it. Like it was just kind of like you were stagnated at this point in time, and that was it.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah. I don't know. I also like never understood her motivations for returning to Burnhall and then staying there, or like forming this relationship with Corey. Like, I just I wanted so much more for her.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

And I think that's where we probably put more thought into this, I think. Because like I was like, oh, well, this must be where that like supernatural component comes in, that it's the house that's drawing her back. The house has decided it wants her, much like Starling House, where it's like, I want you, I'm going to, I'm gonna draw you back in, right? Nope. Or like some kind of connection there. Yeah but no, it was just she's just weird. And she is weird, she is weird, like and we talk about we talked about last season in Court of Winter that like uh um Illara like rejects the mating bond for a long time because you well, you killed my parents allegedly. Like you clearly there's something weird. Your sister was here and he knew her, you're jumping into bed, and you're jumping into bed with him, like what what the heck, man?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I think yes, grief shapes her entire experience. So a lot of this is can be, like you said, attributed to that grief. Like to lose your mom at a young age. There's even a quote, like, Mom gone is a thing, it's a black, silent snake that slithers everywhere and squeezes thickly around my heart. Like it is ever present, this feeling of loss. And then even at the beginning of the book, she is at this wedding with her dad and says, Here we were in the garden by the sea, tipsy on wine and sunshine and flowers in bloom, and all we could think about was my dead sister. Like it is ever present in her life, and and that's true for a lot of us who have experienced grief, grief to such a depth. Like it is ever-present. And Freya seems to have stopped also living after Stella died. Um and I think if I'm just verbally and out outwardly processing, her motivation for going to Burn Hall was trying to get things moving again.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah. I I mean, and and she kind of she kind of says that be you have this, uh you have this highlighted. The I've been dying inside my old life, and by old life I mean my life before yesterday. Okay. We that's a real quick departure.

unknown 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

And but like there is something in like grief where you do hit, you can hit that point of I have to do something drastic and dramatic and you know, to hell with my pri previous sheltered and careful and screw my job. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Like my house.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna be wild. Yeah. Like Stella was.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. Freya's type of wild is very different than Stella. But speaking of Stella, she is Freya's older deceased sister. She was very troubled youth, like also can be a manifestation of grief and the loss of a parent. She would run away a lot, she would have very um large emotional outbursts and and mood swings. She just is described as like a firecracker or fiery quite a bit. Um, and we find out that she had been staying at Bern Hall for quite some time and also had a relationship with Corey, and no one knew about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Which is, I mean, makes does make sense in the context of the story for who she is. But also just like yeah, what you had a whole relationship and lived somewhere, and they just didn't know at all.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

At all. Um, and then we find out that perhaps she did not die by suicide. Perhaps she was killed. Perhaps. Spoilies. Um, also, we've entered our first birds within moment of the episode. First of many. There uh on Stella's headstone is a swallow in flight. Stella has often said um if she could do anything, it would be to fly. Like she would just love to fly, which I think is also just um girl same. I too would love to fly. And if I am Stella trying to constantly run away from my life, flight feels like an appropriate wish to have.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah, I mean, that's very much like birds are often associated with freedom that they can go anywhere. And for somebody who feels so trapped by their life that they constantly are trying to get somewhere else, that's uh I think it's the only consistent thing we're given about Stella. Like is that she her wish is always that I could be a bird. Yep. And that she has red hair, and that she has red hair. But I mean about her as a person, not descriptor.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Another character who I really was interested in and wanted much more from is Diana. This is Corey's mom. She is a former art celebrity. Um, she is ailing, she's sick in this house. And I was so curious of like, what does she have? Or are we supposed to think that Corey is like abusing or poisoning her? Like, obviously, he like locks her in a room. Like, yeah, he's abusing her, but um is he making her sick? Uh she was the most interesting character of this story to me because of her history. She's a survivor of domestic violence. Um, she was a this like art celebrity in in England and and just kind of loses herself in this in this house. And I just she seems like she she starts like hearing whispers in the house. She's you're you're like, oh, she's just she's just nuts. Like, well, and she says she's madness. She sees ghosts. Um, and it's even described as she has become the whispering voice of the house. She has become its mind and its soul. And I was like, Oh, here's the magic that we're having. Nope, just madness, I think. Um she's very frail. I Diana was interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Well, and she part of her madness it manifests as a toxic motherhood. She is obsessed with her son. Yeah. Um, and obsession weaves itself in and out of this story a lot. Yeah. Um, but like she does not want him to go anywhere. Everything, like it it becomes to a fault. I am giving up everything for my son for my my child.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

And speaking of Corey, he's terrible. Um, he is a portrait artist with something to prove, but he's really bad at it. Um, I didn't understand any of his motivations either, other than control. Um, and he's weird, but he's wholly unlikable and creepy and dangerous and awful.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Well, and again, we can talk long and hard about the nature versus nurture. Obviously, there's a little bit of like often we either become the thing that we hated as a as our child, like, or we will never become that thing. And so, like, children of alcoholics either become alcoholics or they give or they mostly live sober. Um victims of abuse either become abusers or are very like again, very like intentional about not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

There's a lot more to that, but but I understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Like there, like those, those are really your two options, you know, like and uh so like there's a little bit of like he was abused, and so that's what he knows. Um, there's probably some like mental component of that that like passed on as well. Um but also you know, you talk about control, like again, with the toxic motherhood of I want you here, I want you near me. He wasn't exposed to a lot of age-appropriate things as a youth, and so that manifests as an adult where all of the worst traits about him have been fed.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah. Ugh. He's awful. A couple other side characters here, and we've talked about our main players. Um, we have Tom, who is a childhood friend and neighbor to Freya and Stella growing up. I think maybe both of them wanted something more with him. I know Freya definitely did, but it just that never really manifested. I wanted more from their relationship. Yeah. More description, more interaction, more something. Um, and then Robert, who is Stella and Freya's dad. And Robert is an art critic. He misses his girls like desperately, like once Stella after Stella leaves, and um, and then she dies, and then Freya leaves as well. He is kind I just kind of see him as this like bumbling dad. Like, I don't know, I'm gonna figure it out. Like, Freya can help me. Um, I'm not gonna drive, Tom's gonna drive. Um a good guy, good good enough guy.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah. But well, and obviously again, grappling with first the death of his wife, then the death of his daughter, and but I love that we did get to see him get better.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

I do too.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Like, at least because I think I don't think Freya actually got better. I think she just went mad.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Right?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

But like Is that what happened? I I don't know. I I really don't, I don't know what happened. But but he like he starts to move on, right? He is in he's new, he's now dating. He's like with Freya gone, that kind of pushes him to like not because he's no longer relying on her to grow. And he does, and beautifully, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

So cheers for Tom or for Robert and Tom.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And Tom is for putting up with this family.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Tom's just catching strays left and right, you know. And he's just like a good he's he's a good guy, like he's just a normal, a normal dude.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

And I do think that Stella also wanted him. Yeah. Because like they they talk about where like she invited him before she went off with Corey. She had asked Tom to come with her. That's right. Um and he was like, No, like, and uh when Tom came over to the house when his wife left him, and Stella was like, You're gonna stay here, and I'm gonna go down, and she's like dressed.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, in her um revealing nighties. Yeah, right. And Freya's like, I I was just gonna go down and like give him a blanket and like talk about and talk about books. Yeah. Stella's like, no, I'm gonna go make a move. Okay, those are our characters that set up kind of the the players of this of this stage here. But where are we? So we are in England. We bought between London and this town of Bly. Um Bly is on the cliffs, it is a seaside town. Um, there's the sea below, and there are some really great scenes of Freya going out swimming in the sea and looking up at Bern Manor. And I thought those were some of the best scenes that we got in the book.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, the there's a variety of descriptions of the sea, which is very like very appropriate because the sea is so it's so ever-changing. Yeah. Um, and so you know, the sea goes, I think you called out here, from like glittering and idyllic to flat and opaque as a slate. And like it even when it's calm though, like sometimes it's calm and sometimes it's calm and beautiful, and sometimes it's calm and not and dangerous. Um, but then also like in that initial storm that it's choppy and like you can feel the power of the waves.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah. While there's a scene while Freya is out swimming, that she literally runs into a woman that she forms a friendship with Maggie. And Maggie is is a character, but she's a very small character. And I really wanted so much more from Maggie for Freya. Yeah. Um but this this felt like Freya's lifeline out of Burn Hall. And we'll get into kind of like Burn Hall and and everything that happens within it. Um but know that in Freya's moments where she feels really free, versus like Stella wants to be a bird and to fly. Freya's like, I love swimming, that's where I feel free. She meets the person that can help her get free. I didn't even think about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

And then it doesn't. I know. Okay. But that's I mean, again, if you want to talk about the psychology of some of this, like we could, which we could, uh like in abusive situations, like you have to want to get out. Like anybody can tell you that you're there, and anybody can offer you all the assistance, but unlike until you take their hand, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And Maggie tries desperately to lead her back to the water, and it just And often when we when people are in abusive relationships, um, and they do leave violence can often escalate. Um, so it becomes dangerous to leave. So want to acknowledge that. Yes, uh, because what we are talking about here, what the the relationship that Freya enters with Corey is abusive, um in a in in a controlling, isolating you can't go anywhere, you can't talk to anybody but me sort of way. Um so we know who the players are, we know that we're in England in the seaside village, and now let's talk about kind of the main setting for the entire book, Burn Hall. We are first introduced to this house via Freya and Robert, her dad. They're at a wedding that's at the house. And there's some this is the first scene in the book, and I was like, oh, this is great. It is really immersive, there's really good descriptions, my hopes were up. She feels this sense of panic in that tent. There's sweltering heat, she's drunk. Um, she describes like the stench of close-packed bodies was indistinguishable from the smell of garlicky meat. Like, if you've been on the thr on like the edge of a panic attack, you know, like everything just becomes louder, smellier, bigger, like that's what I felt in that moment with her.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah, I I had that same uh that same quote pulled about the the stench of close close-packed bodies. Um, I also had pulled that the heat felt much heavier under the canvas, and it seemed to absorb and intensify all the sweaty, fumy, floral scents that a wedding party gives off. And I just like there was there was so much of that that I was like, No thanks. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Don't want it.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Um but yeah, I think I I did there was a a sensory component to that opening scene because I have a lot of things. Uh her uh the lamb cutlet was covered in gritty pepper. And when I pressed it with the flat of my knife, it bled like a grazed knee. So good. All of this was great. So like it's what happened. It set such a great Tone for the start of the book.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yeah, the descriptions of the fountain in the front of Burn Hall, right? Like the smell of the water and the lush towering trees. There's it was it's so great. And we come to learn that Burn Hall is about 300 years old. It's built in the Queen Anne style, so very Victorian. It is described as a pale, pillared house that is rather austere with its three identical rows of windows and the severe symmetry of its columns and chimney.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Uh as is uh as is common with an older house like this, um, it was very cold inside. Uh the cold inside the house was still and stony instead of fresh and outdoorsy, which like speaks to the age and like the weight that like that older homes have.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

And the emptiness of Burn Hall.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yes, because they have sold everything to keep afloat.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So that's the house from the outside, and the way that we've structured here is you know, we see it from the outside at this wedding, and then Freya's first steps inside of Burn Hall happen at the wedding. She is escaping the tent where the wedding is happening, she needs something cold, she needs to lie down. And so she ends up passing out inside like the foyer of Burn Hall, but she notices that it has a black and white checkered marble floor, it is very eerie in there. She describes the stillness and the cold air, it's empty. And then she sees a portrait that she assumes to be her sister right before she passes out. And then when she wakes, the portrait's gone. And so this is our first introduction to the outside of Burnhall, to this world, and then and then Freya stepping inside and it kind of sets the stage for the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

So I I wondered, like, again, initially, I was like, oh, the front door is open. She doesn't even have to like, she just walks in.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

And I'm like, oh, is this the house? Like inviting coming come into me, like whatever. But then now I'm thinking, like, oh, like, did Corey, did Corey purposely leave it open because he saw her in the garden and recognized. You look like Stella. Like I hate that guy. So um, yeah, just had that, just had that thought.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah. So then Freya ends up returning to the house. She returns to Burn Hall. And folks, we get our next uh Birds Within Moment here. She describes the the top of the gateposts. Um there are stone ravens on one on either side, one headless, both badly pocked and weather stained. And we learn that Burn Hall is actually Gaelic for Raven. Later, Stella is coming up to Burn Hall and she describes, like, oh, like there's these black birds in the trees. Are they crows? Are they ravens? I don't know. Folks, I'm here to tell you. If you see a large black bird and think, I wonder if that's a crow or a raven, it's a crow. If you see a large black bird and you think, oh my god, look at that bird, it's a raven. Ravens have like a two X wingspan of a crow. Like these are giant birds. So I just want to call out that you you will know. And it's most often a crow. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

But you can befriend crows by giving them shiny things.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

You can. Um, so Freya returns and sorry. Uh, we see that her hope for the house is very different than the reality of the house. She envisioned this being a refuge. She talked about I can picture myself in a in a high-ceiling bedroom facing the garden with dust dancing in the shaft of sunlight, the sound of sea outside of her window. And the reality, the walls aren't, they haven't been painted in years. There's blocked drain pipes and rust-colored water. There's green stains, which is like moss and mold and who knows, on the plaster. Windows are cracked and smashed. There's weeds in the gardens. Like the house is falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah, and she like from the front where the weddings are, it is immaculate. It is pristine. It is beautiful, which is which makes sense because that's what you're wanting as the backdrop for your wedding. But then she's like walking around the outside of the rest of it, and she's like, Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

It's just disrepair.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

It's and the dichotomy of like the pristine versus the complete let go.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yep, just kind of the image we put on for the world versus what's happening inside. Um, and then as Freya continues to wander through the house, she learns that everything has been sold to keep the family afloat. So it is empty, it's cavernous.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

She says you could see where things used to be, which we all know that, like we see that image of like the dust outlines of where a couch used to be pushed up against a wall and or where like the paint has faded because something was there, and then you move it, and where it was blocking the light, it's yeah, not it's like it's still more vibrant.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. But very gothic, very atmospheric in our descriptions of Burn Hall. Um and then we go deeper inside to specific rooms within this house. First, I wanted to talk about Corey's studio/slash bedroom. It is full of paintings that are stacked on the floor, but they're turned so you can't see them. And Freya is so uncomfortable to move about this room because Corey makes her feel that way. She doesn't want to wake him, she doesn't want to um disturb anything. And so it does feel like this cage, Corey's studio. And also Corey is obsessively drawing Freya all the time, like posing her and like studying her and trying to make all of these new portraits of Freya, and so she's just an object in this room.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Well, and and it she talks about like there's a romantic set of like rose-colored glasses that she puts on the first time she's in there versus like as she's in there more. And so when I first saw Corey's room, I thought of those Arabian Knights Tales where genies whisk palaces from one corner of the globe and set them down in another. I suppose you might call it a cheap effect if you were detached about it. Light two dozen candles, place them in clusters around a large untidy room, which is what we did with a box of matches each, once Corey had set the tray down on the floor. And of course the shadows will come to life and the dirt will turn to gold dust. And oh, and the bare class bear plaster will look as if it's been gilded. I didn't want to be detached though, so I fell for it willingly. Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah, I've been in those moments where I'm like, I want, I want to see something specific. I want to see this in a specific light. And so I'm going to. I'm gonna put those rose-colored glasses on and and I'm gonna enjoy this for what I want.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, absolutely. And what it represents to Freya, too. It's feeling chosen, right? She has kind of, we think, want wanted Tom or wanted more with Tom, but not really felt chosen by anybody, not even by Stella, not by she's kind of just been moving through life. And Corey has turned all of his attention on her. And in this room, she feels I finally have it. I have somebody who can take care of me, love me, see me, be an artist with me. I can write my poems and he can paint his paintings, and how what a bohemian ideal this is.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah, she regularly regularly refers to their ideal, like that that's what they're they're creating, this this ideal. Yeah. And she's like, and and towards the end, she's just like, I can't call it that anymore. This is she realizes how like pretentious and like uh how like how pretentious and unrealistic completely that that is.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Another room we step into is Diana's bedroom. Um and this is described in such contrast where the house feels very empty. Diana's room is cluttered. All like the dressing table is cluttered with lipsticks and candles that couldn't even like mask the stench of disinfectant, and it just feels there's there's vases around with flowers in varying states of decay and like browning on the edges of roses, and um Diana's room feels like isolation trapped, and Corey seemingly locks her in there to die.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

It I think and I'm I might be misremembering, I don't think he started locking her in there until later, until after like she and when she went to the hospital. Yeah, when she went to the hospital or whatever. Yes. Um that and I think that was to keep more to keep Freya out than to keep Diana in. Because let's be honest, she's frail. Like I if you've ever known a very old person who like their their skin feels papery thin and their bones feel so light that if you hold them too uh firmly that they might crack, that's that's what I pictured, Diana, you know, because she was just she had lost everything basically, like physically. And she talks about how the the pain of just existing and like to try and move around the house was too much. So I don't think she was locked in there because he was trying to keep her there. I she wasn't moving anyway.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

I mean it did feel but it did feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

I just mean that I don't think we're gonna lock this old bat here. I'm gonna keep my current interests locked out of that room. Yeah, yeah. And you're right, like that Diana is described as a like a chrysalis on the cusp of disintegration. Or later on, um there's a quote there, she drops into bed with a rustle of silk and bone. Like she's just frail, she's she's got nothing to her. Um, but her room is so full of things. Yes, it's so interesting. Uh another room I want to talk about is is the attic. The attic becomes a place of horror, I think. Um there's a quote that even these even these neglected attic rooms are cruel, they hold secrets like Stella's portrait, and and we learned that Stella had ripped ripped apart this portrait and hidden the hand so that people wouldn't hopefully it would be found, and she had written her name on the back. And um, Stella was locked in this attic, and and then Freya kind of suffers the same fate. And ugh, I just the attic is so creepy already, and then at Burn Hall is scary.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Well, and that was one of those moments too where I was like expecting some kind of like paranormal, supernatural sentience because like she says, you know, she walks, she just walks into the room that Stella was in because it's the only room that called to her. Well, why why? Like you just happened to walk in there, or was there some level of like spookiness, spookiness, but it doesn't at no I think I this is very much like uh I I love Riley Sager novels, but it was very much like um there's one book, there's there's a couple books where you can't tell the whole time is it supernatural or is it um just like real things that are explainable away and but are being made to look supernatural, and you like you don't know until the end which one it is. That's what this felt like, but like it wasn't done as well, and like and I never really got the resolution, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Ugh. Hated the attic and everything it represented. Um, and then the final place is we're like deeper into Burnhall, and this is a central plot point. Corey wants to turn the front rooms in foyer into an exhibition space. He has painted all of these portraits of Freya, and he's like, Finally I can showcase my work, and we're gonna paint these walls and I don't know what color, blah blah blah, and then he decides to paint them Pampolona red, which I don't know the specific color, but the idea of these blood-red walls and gilded gold frames and these poorly done portraits of Freya is so garish and harsh, and the rest of the house is decrepit and falling apart. It is truly like lipstick on a pig. Yeah, it's that feels like horror to me.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, and like it's so incomplete and not and not well thought out. Like they don't have a place, they don't have a coat rack.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Yeah, they've nowhere to put the coat rack.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

They don't they didn't hire enough staff to like handle some of the things. They got enough champagne, but they didn't get enough food for the number of people. All of the people that are there are kind of not washed up, but like all of Diana's old art contacts because Corey has has none. Yeah, that's all he had. The only more modern one he had was Freya's dad. And who was like, how dare you invite me to this? Like, is this a joke? Yeah. Is this a joke? Like, I'm not I'm not even going to waste ink on this. Um but like again, they're not washed up, but they are outdated a little bit. Like they're not really gonna have the same poll that they did 20 years ago. Um, and also, and honestly, that's probably a good thing because it was such a disaster, but he also doesn't even realize that at all. The only panic he has about it is when uh Robert leaves.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yep, because he's not had a chance to like woo him and get the the glowing review that he thinks he deserves out of Robert. So we've talked about our characters, we've talked about Bly, and we've talked about Burn Hall kind of walking from the front doors through to our deeper rooms here as we see them through through Freya's story. Is there anything else you want to talk about the world?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

No, I think I mean it's uh because it is a real place, like it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty straightforward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Some of the sensory immersion, I know we've we might have talked about these already, but um, a lot of scent descriptions. Yes, right? We get the garlicky meat, we get the the sweaty floral in the tent. Um, there's one where Freya is standing outside and she inhaled the stale breath of the night, tarmac and traffic in the kebab shop.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Like just hot. Um, when she's talking about Corey's studio, she says it didn't smell of inspiration. It by which I mean it didn't smell of oily rags or paint or turpentine or coffee or glue. Um we also get some description of uh his scent. I don't let me fall enough. We do. Uh he had a nice smell, sort of biscuity with overtones of coffee and pencil shavings. And I don't I don't know how I feel about that. Like part of me is like, I should like those things. It feels nostalgic.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yes. But do you just mean pine? Like what do you but like a pencil shaving is a distinct smell.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

I was gonna say that is a very specific scent.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

I just I don't know. The idea of like, oh, here, meet my my boyfriend, he smells like pencil shavings.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

But also she says biscuity, but this is said in England, which means like cookies. Yeah. So that's like got a sweet, and I don't like that, I think. I don't like the sweetness. I don't like that. I don't, I don't think I like the sweetness of a cookie with that sharp pine. Not tangy, but honestly, stale. Yeah. That stale wood smell of a pencil.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Oh man. Yeah, it's a lot, y'all. It's it's simultaneously a lot and nothing. And I think that is like the general synopsis of the book. We get so many of these atmosph atmospheric descriptions that are really well done, and they have a lot of sensory and it it is with the intent to be immersive and flesh out a scene, but it just feels flat to me.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Yeah. Um, I did call out a couple things. Uh, one, she said uh it was eerily close to the room I'd created in my imagination, albeit without the dusty shafts of sunlight. And I I did call out that this was kind of like Opal dreaming of Starling House before she'd seen it. Now, this is very early on, so I'm like still thinking like there's some supernatural component to the um uh to the house that again never resolved. Uh the other thing that I have two notes that I pulled out for you. For me. For you. Uh so first, when they describe uh Freya and Robert's backyard, um, they say our backyard was a sparse strip of grass, an uneven paving ending in a fence. And all I could picture was your backyard when we were lived in P in P in Pensacola.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

And you had that huge uh It was like half of it was a concrete pad, and then there was just like this small strip of grass where that was well it was at first full of a one corner was full of a sago palm, which is quite poisonous to dogs. And so my husband and I took a random machete that we own and we chopped it down.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

But that was what I was like picturing Florida, right? That's what I was picturing when like the when they when she described that. Um the other one that I uh I pulled out when she is um going to uh when she's going back to Burnhall to Bly and she's at the train bus station uh and she's talking about she sees all of these signs and she's like seen anything suspicious, an evening with the stars, and she's like she's on repeat. She repeats it three times, and I was like, what is this, Beetlejuice?

SPEAKER_00 40:41

If only.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

If only again, so I'm like thinking, like, is there some kind of is there a ghost? Is it a ghost? No, like is this part of the like the hypnosis of like bringing you back? Like, what what's gone? Turns out I was reaching. I was reaching.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

I was reaching, and it's that early interaction when she gets off of the the like the train and then the bus, and then she sees Corey and she just blurts out to him, like, I want to be a poet. I highlighted that and I said, Girl, what? Like, you don't know this man. You don't that's like the first thing that she says to him. It's so weird. There's another point where um they she and Corey that first night that she had at Burn Hall was very romantic, and they had like laid under the stars, they had run down through the rose garden, like very beautiful, tender moments. And then the next day in daylight, she said, Corey was a complete stranger to me in the daylight. And I highlighted it and I said, He's a stranger in any light, like you don't know this man.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

And you will not understand because you are an Aries. Um and that I am and uh this is I you have we have had these conversations in my life where like I as a Pisces have been like, oh, like this, oh I've waxed poetic on things, and you're like, girl, no.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Right, just stop.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Like, just stop. Like, you don't like you again, it's putting on those rose-colored glasses and like seeing what you want to see in a very romantic and like romanticized style. And there's so many times in in our history that I have done that and you've been like, Stop. I need you to, I need you to, I need you to pause. I need you to rewind, and I need you to not press play again.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah, can you just look at this realistically?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

Like, let's let's take the filter off and let's actually look at the facts.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Literally, just asked a similar question to somebody at work who was describing a situation and they said, Well, this is the happy path. And they described it to me, and I said, That's great. I understand the happy path. What's the realistic path?

SPEAKER_01 42:43

But that's what I like. I feel like I don't I don't know when her birthday is, but I feel like she's a Pisces, or she's a water sign of some kind because she does like romanticize everything until she's forced to reckon with it.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yeah. And reckon with it, she does.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

And well, yeah, and then she becomes very vengeance-bent, and I that I did like. Yeah. Like uh, I can see the I liked the I want to light this bridge on fire while I'm on it.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Yes. And I was like if I if I'm going down, I'm taking everybody with me.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

But still not quite enough. All right. Let's talk about our portal moments. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

You you go you go first.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Mine was Freya explore exploring Diana's room for that first time because it was such a stark difference to what I had pictured Burnhall to be. Um, she describes it as it felt like not just autumn, but late autumn. There was a row of scented candles saying not even the combined efforts of jasmine and sandalwood could mask the stench of disinfectant and sickness. The light was so dim through the trees. It's untidy, it feels oppressive. The dressing table was super close. With lipsticks, like everything just felt really spooky to me in that room in a different way than like an empty cavernous front room did. And that, I don't know. I was just like, ooh, let's keep exploring this. Like, let's I felt fully there with Freya in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Um, so it was I will say it was hard for me. I don't I I don't actually know that.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I don't actually know that I have like uh I was vested. Sure. But I will say the two moments that I felt most sensory aware or like bought in, um, we talked about the the wedding scene. So good. The sensory uh descriptors in that scene are so good and don't recommend it, but I have been that drunk. Um where like I gotta go, I gotta go, I'm overwhelmed, like it's it's fueling a panic attack. And then like I could feel like the cool tile floor or the marble in this case, because I've I've done that. I'm like, I'm just I'm so I need to cool my body, yeah. I need to lay down on the ground and like get horizontal, and then like the world will stop spinning, and like just like the kind of coming to and being like slightly unaware, like yeah, and and having to like figure out and piece things together and being unsure what was real and what was not, I've been there. Um, the other one, and this is a little spoiler spoilery, but when she finds Corey, that is a good moment. It it's a it's a twist that I didn't see coming. And like it was a visceral scene, and I could feel her go into shock.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Like, and just the without spoiling it too much, it is a very, it doesn't have a lot of sensory description. It doesn't need it. And it doesn't need it, yeah, but I still felt it.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

So I will say that that that one was probably the closest I had to being like, oh, oh, okay. And I think it's because I part of it is honestly because we spent so long with nothing happening, and then suddenly it's all happening. And so I was like, oh, okay, wait, I'm here, I'm there, I'm invested.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

And even like you mentioned you could feel her go into shock, like her confusion in that moment of like, am I really seeing what I'm seeing here? Yeah, felt really visceral. Like we've been in those moments, like, wait, what is this? Is this is this real life? Like, yeah, because I don't think she trusts her reality anymore at that point, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Because she has descended into some level of madness. She has to then.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Well, I refuse to let this book descend me into madness. So let's wrap it up. All right. Wrap it up.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Before we go, let's give the Whispering House our immersion rating on a scale of one to ten portals.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Uh for me, this is a three out of ten because I I mean, you all have just listened to the because there are some really good scenes, but they weren't enough to like pull me into the world or to pull me into this book and make me feel like I was in the story. The story never felt like it became space to me. I felt confused more often than not. Um like I I I felt like I was missing chapters because the pacing was very weird to me. Uh I wanted so much more out of this. So three out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

I I'm going two because I had two moments where I actually felt vested in the book. So I'm gonna go with a two out of ten. And uh like again, I would have I would not have made it much farther or very far. Yeah, I would not have made it, I would have probably made it about 40% of the way through the book. Yeah, and that would have been about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, and it wouldn't have you wouldn't have learned anything different at 40%. Exactly. Like it didn't happen the the the twist didn't happen until what the final 15% of the book. So 85% of the way through with like a nothingness. Yeah, so anyway, y'all. Thanks for joining us for The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks. Much like Burn Hall itself, perhaps the facade of this book was better than what was inside. We wanted so much more and different and better for our characters here, and it just kind of fell flat. It's very disappointing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Next time we're diving into Gallant by V. E. Schwab. Until then, keep the lamps lit and the shadows in check, and follow us on Instagram and TikTok and let us know where you felt story became space. Bye! Thanks again for joining us for another episode of Worlds Within, where story becomes space. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Worlds Within Pod for more episodes, sensory guides to your favorite books, and more.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform. Bye!