Narrator Ines del Castillo sounds very much like the teenage heroine, Ines, who has been accepted to exclusive Catherine House, a college that boasts a host of successful graduates. After a rigorous application process, accepted students must agree to three years of absolute isolation, having no contact with their families or the outside world. In exchange, everything they need, including tuition, is provided. Del Castillo is spot-on delivering Ines’s feelings of uncertainty and her reluctance to conform, both of which enhance Catherine House’s ominous atmosphere. Students are subjected to mass hypnosis, plasm experimentation, and brainwashing. Surreal out-of-body experiences make this more science fiction than gothic horror, but del Castillo does her best to engage the listener in this overly long, overplotted, and ultimately unsatisfying debut novel. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Catherine House: A Novel
Narrated by Inés del Castillo
Elisabeth ThomasUnabridged — 11 hours, 27 minutes
Catherine House: A Novel
Narrated by Inés del Castillo
Elisabeth ThomasUnabridged — 11 hours, 27 minutes
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Overview
“Elisabeth Thomas had me mesmerized from the first page.*Dreamy and brimming with dread,*Catherine House*will swallow you whole.""* -*Rory Power,*New York Times*bestselling author of*Wilder Girls
Trust us, you belong here.
A gothic-infused debut of literary suspense, set within a secluded, elite university and following a dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate who uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school's promise of prestige.
Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years-summers included-completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.
Among this year's incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline-only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school's enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she's ever had. But the House's strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school-in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence-might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.
Combining the haunting sophistication and dusky, atmospheric style of Sarah Waters with the unsettling isolation of Kazuo Ishiguro's*Never Let Me Go, Catherine House*is a devious, deliciously steamy, and suspenseful page-turner with shocking twists and sharp edges that is sure to leave readers breathless.
Editorial Reviews
★ 03/02/2020
Thomas’s spellbinding debut opens in 1996 on Ines Murillo’s first night at a small, highly selective college in the Pennsylvania woods. Drunk after a party, Ines reflects on her relief that behind Catherine House’s locked gates, no one knows about her past. Renowned for controversial research regarding a mysterious elemental substance called plasm, the school holds classes year-round, and students remain confined to Catherine’s rural estate. Eager to disassociate from a past trauma, Ines falls behind on her work while seeking solace in a string of sexual encounters before finding a group of friends who feel closer to family than anything she’s ever known. Still, Ines can’t ignore her growing suspicions about the school’s plasm experimentation in “psychosexual healing,” in which students are subjected to mass hypnosis. Ines’s academic probation leads her to forced isolation in the “Restoration Center,” where a professor places plasm pins in her head and tells her she’ll never think of her past life again. Surreal imagery, spare characterization, and artful, hypnotic prose lend Thomas’s tale a delirious air, but at the book’s core lies a profound portrait of depression and adolescent turmoil. Fans of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History will devour this philosophical fever dream. Agent: Kent Wolf, Friedrich Agency. (May)
"Elisabeth Thomas is a magician of a writer who expertly blends a deeply atmospheric boarding-school story with a futuristic sci-fi mystery in Catherine House. A grown-up, sophisticated version of Lois Duncan’s Down a Dark Hall, this dazzling debut will have you turning the pages late into the night."
Elisabeth Thomas’s debut novel weaves a thrilling, compact story that builds dread slowly. . . . Thomas incorporates elements of science fiction as she begins to reveal the darkness at work on campus, but not before readers are eased in with some classic hallmarks of prep-school fiction.
Calling all The Secret History fans! This debut novel is set within the walls of an exclusive private college, but with a twist: Students seclude themselves for three years, completely removed from their previous lives.
This haunting thriller is filled with unexpected twists and shocking suspense.
"Catherine House is a novel that lingers long after the final page. It's a haunting, mesmerizing debut—a modern gothic tale that is both profoundly moving and eerily disturbing. Thomas's novel makes us question our ability to forgive, to accommodate our mistakes and those of others, and the possibility of ever truly finding a place that feels like home."
There are shades of Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock as suspense builds in the winding corridors of the house and the twisting turns of the psyche. Moody and evocative as a fever dream, Catherine House is the sort of book that wraps itself around your brain, drawing you closer with each hypnotic step.
The strength of this debut novel relies on its refusal to adhere to any sort of genre conventions . . . The book’s setting provides just as much fodder for thought and discussion as do its characters or plot. . . . While the book is easy to read—Thomas’s smart prose ensures that—the echoes of discomfort linger long after the last pages are turned.”
This dark, speculative thriller . . . [is] an electrifying update on gothic horror, evoking haunting institutional imagery and weaving in 'psychosexual' experimentation and power imbalances.
Elisabeth Thomas had me mesmerized from the first page. Dreamy and brimming with dread, Catherine House will swallow you whole."
"With this astonishing debut, Elisabeth Thomas has conjured an immersive, intoxicating world that left me as reluctant as its characters were to leave it behind. I inhaled the novel in a single, glorious weekend, but Catherine House and its denizens will linger with me for a very long time."
"For fans of Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Catherine House is a haunting, atmospheric reflection on the discovery of self and others. At times terrifying, always gorgeously captivating, Thomas’ debut is one not to be missed, and perhaps to be revisited frequently."
There are shades of Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock as suspense builds in the winding corridors of the house and the twisting turns of the psyche. Moody and evocative as a fever dream, Catherine House is the sort of book that wraps itself around your brain, drawing you closer with each hypnotic step.
Elisabeth Thomas’s debut novel weaves a thrilling, compact story that builds dread slowly. . . . Thomas incorporates elements of science fiction as she begins to reveal the darkness at work on campus, but not before readers are eased in with some classic hallmarks of prep-school fiction.
Thomas’s debut novel is a dark, delicious gothic read that hits all the right spots in the best way. If you want a book you can’t put down for even a second, this is it.
Catherine House is a page turner that is equal parts dark, dreamy, and disturbing.
Catherine House is a page turner that is equal parts dark, dreamy, and disturbing.
Elisabeth Thomas had me mesmerized from the first page. Dreamy and brimming with dread, Catherine House will swallow you whole."
Thomas’s debut novel is a dark, delicious gothic read that hits all the right spots in the best way. If you want a book you can’t put down for even a second, this is it.
"With this astonishing debut, Elisabeth Thomas has conjured an immersive, intoxicating world that left me as reluctant as its characters were to leave it behind. I inhaled the novel in a single, glorious weekend, but Catherine House and its denizens will linger with me for a very long time."
Narrator Ines del Castillo sounds very much like the teenage heroine, Ines, who has been accepted to exclusive Catherine House, a college that boasts a host of successful graduates. After a rigorous application process, accepted students must agree to three years of absolute isolation, having no contact with their families or the outside world. In exchange, everything they need, including tuition, is provided. Del Castillo is spot-on delivering Ines’s feelings of uncertainty and her reluctance to conform, both of which enhance Catherine House’s ominous atmosphere. Students are subjected to mass hypnosis, plasm experimentation, and brainwashing. Surreal out-of-body experiences make this more science fiction than gothic horror, but del Castillo does her best to engage the listener in this overly long, overplotted, and ultimately unsatisfying debut novel. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2020-02-09
Students accepted to the mysterious and prestigious Catherine House agree to give up contact with the outside world for three years in exchange for unimaginable power and influence.
Ines arrives at Catherine House because she has nowhere else to go. After months spent partying, she has barely graduated high school. "I was staying out late, swallowing magic pills, and laughing so hard I threw up," she recalls. Burdened by a deeply traumatic memory, Ines sees the isolation of Catherine House as a way to insulate herself from the consequences of the real world. But Ines quickly realizes that she doesn't fit in at Catherine House either. She lacks the motivation that drives other Catherine students, like her quiet, focused roommate, Baby, who desperately wants to be accepted to the "new materials" concentration. The highly competitive department attracts the school's best and brightest students as well as the bulk of its funding. But what do new materials students actually study in the laboratories of Catherine House's basement? And why are all students asked to take part in cultlike meditative sessions that seem to bind their identities to the school? Thomas' debut borrows from the grand tradition of the gothic, exchanging ghosts for dubious scientific experimentation and excavating how figures of power and privilege manipulate disadvantaged students to their own benefit. Thomas is at her best when she cracks open the conventions of elite spaces and turns them on their heads. Instead of a whitewashed institution with token diversity, Catherine House brims with sexually fluid teens from all walks of life. And despite Catherine House's reputation, the school crumbles from the inside out. Because Ines has experienced so much trauma, however, she's often disconnected and distant from the characters and events that propel the plot forward. Even her curiosity and ability to explore Catherine's depths are tamped down by depression and fear. This results in muted, lyrical observations about what it feels like to be in "the house...in the woods," but it also means the reader only learns as much as Ines herself can see and process. In the end, we're shut out of the mysteries of Catherine House, too.
A promising but uneven debut that walks the line between speculative fiction and ghost story.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172895715 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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