Think Penny Dreadful for this audience: have the graphic novels out display and booktalk with Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s series and Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty. The ending leaves the possibility of a sequel open, and while I was left satisfied – not a lot of loose ends dangling – I wanted to find out more about everyone at Coldthistle, and to see what Louisa planned on doing next. Similar to her Asylum series, the author includes photos and excerpts from a supernatural text that figures heavily into the plot. Morningside, to Gram, the crone-turned-head of Coldthistle who rescues Louisa and brings her to the boarding house. The cast of characters is rich, from the handsome, mysterious Mr. Louisa is a conflicted Gothic heroine, stuck in a situation she’s terrified of but committed to the friends she’s made there and keeping her potential love interest, Lee, safe from harm. I gobbled up Madeleine Roux’s Asylum books and was excited to see a new book from her. Is Lee as genuine and blameless as Louisa thinks he is? Can Louisa trust anyone at Coldthistle House? And who are the mysterious Residents?

When she discovers that Coldthistle House is more than just a boarding house – it’s a house of judgement, where the staff wield their own judgement on their guests, Louisa decides she needs to act: she’s convinced that Lee, a lodger traveling with his uncle, is an innocent.

Morningside, the owner, down to Mary, a fellow maid who reminds Louisa of someone from her past, everyone is… different. She gratefully accepts the offer, but very quickly realizes that Coldthistle House is a strange place from Mr. Teenage runaway Louisa Ditton tries to avoid life on the streets in 1800s England, telling fortunes for a the cost of a meal and a night’s lodging, when she’s offered employment as a maid at Coldthistle House, a boarding house in Northern England.

Madeleine roux books in order