Behind the Veil by E. J. Dawson – 3.5 Star Book Review

To catch a killer or save her sanity

Welcome to the October 15th stop on the blog tour for Behind the Veil by E. J. Dawson with Bewitching Book Tours (tour schedule linked.) Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts & interviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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About the Book

Behind the Veil
by E.J. Dawson

Published 1 October 2021
Literary Wanderlust
Cover Artist: Violeta Nedkova

Genre: Gothic Suspense/Horror
Page Count: 252
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Can she keep the secrets of her past to rescue a girl tormented by a ghost?

In 1920s Los Angeles, Letitia Hawking reads the veil between life and death. A scrying bowl allows her to experience the final moments of the deceased. She brings closure to grief-stricken war widows and mourning families.
For Letitia, it is a penance. She knows no such peace.

For Alasdair Driscoll, it may be the only way to save his niece, Finola, from her growing night terrors. But when Letitia sees a shadowy figure attached to the household, it rouses old fears of her unspeakable past in England.

When a man comes to her about his missing daughter, the third girl to go missing in as many months, Letitia can’t help him when she can’t see who’s taken them.

As a darkness haunts Letitia’s vision, she may not be given a choice in helping the determined Mr Driscoll, or stop herself falling in love with him. But to do so risks a part of herself she locked away, and to release it may cost Letitia her sanity and her heart.

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Excerpt

The little café was an embodiment of Paris, offering French pastries, coffee, and Swedish chocolates kept in a glass display, with little boxes allowing people to them take home. Letitia didn’t like chocolate much, but she saw above the display case jars of biscuits, including butterscotch. An indulgence during her meeting would be acceptable, given she would not get time for lunch.

Round metal tables were full of people finishing a midmorning repast, people talked in French and English, the tone pleasant on the ear. The warm lights overhead contrasted with the dim day outside, casting shadows across the room and leaving an intimate setting despite the full café.

Mrs. Quinn had taken a table near the back and was being seated by a waiter when she spied Letitia in the doorway and raised her hand in greeting.

Letitia threaded between the tables, stopping before Mrs. Quinn, who rose with a smile.

“Ms. Hawking,” she said, “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Mrs. Quinn,” Letitia answered, holding out her hand, which Mrs. Quinn shook. The similarity to Mr. Driscoll was elusive, but there in the faint bone structure was a determined jawline that did not bode for a dissimilar personality. Mr. Driscoll was tall with loose curls of graying auburn, while Mrs. Quinn was a strawberry blonde, far younger than him, and a little plump. She was a far cry from the broad-shouldered mountain that was Mr. Driscoll.

“What do you fancy?” Mrs. Quinn said, gesturing to the chair opposite as she sat.

“Earl Grey tea,” Letitia told the still hovering waiter, “and the butterscotch biscuit in the jar on the counter.”

“Madam does not wish to see the menu?” he clarified, holding it out for her to inspect.

“No, thank you.”

When he’d gone, Mrs. Quinn took a deep breath, smiling at Letitia, who braced herself.

“I’m so sorry about my brother,” Mrs. Quinn began in a rush. Letitia held her tongue but returned the smile with a smaller one of her own, prepared to let Mrs. Quinn ramble until she said something useful.

“You see,” Mrs. Quinn went on, “Alasdair and my husband were close, and there was trouble just before his death. My brother feels terrible about it, but our concern is not, in fact, Mr. Quinn.”

“You said on the phone that this was regarding your daughter?” Letitia prompted, hoping Mrs. Quinn would get to the point. The evasion on the subject from Mr. Driscoll bespoke a serious matter, but not why it should concern Letitia. It was annoying.

“Yes, my Finola,” Mrs. Quinn said, lowering her voice. “She’s sick.”

“Have you summoned a doctor?” Letitia said, holding onto her patience.

“We have…and it’s not a physical condition,” Mrs. Quinn said. “She had an awful turn a while back, when she was with Alasdair—I mean, Mr. Driscoll.”

Letitia stared at her, the overeager woman cagey, her gaze darting about the crowded restaurant rather than resting on Letitia’s face.

“Please forgive me, Mrs. Quinn,” Letitia said, “but this affects me how?”

Mrs. Quinn was silent for a moment, clasping her hands and wedging them between her body and the table, almost as though she were praying. Letitia had a foreboding Mrs. Quinn would not call to an unresponsive god but plead Letitia instead.

“You are a very gifted woman, Ms. Hawking,” Mrs. Quinn said, her voice hushed and wary of nearby tables listening in, “but I wonder, have you ever met anyone else like yourself? Able to…contact the dead, I mean? And the other things—I can only assume that’s why you wear the gloves and veil, so you can hide.”

Letitia flushed at the slight, aware now the woman was far more like her brother than she’d realized. The schooling of her features slipped and she eyed Mrs. Quinn with distaste, and Mrs. Quinn waved her hands before her, mouth open as she gasped for words.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “it didn’t occur to me that would be such a rude thing to say.”

Biting words wanted to snap along Letitia’s tongue, but the order arrived and she remained silent. The waiter placed tea and two small biscuits before her, asking if there was anything else before leaving.

Mrs. Quinn had a black coffee and that was all. Letitia was a little surprised at her choice.

It was enough to make her pause when Mrs. Quinn dumped three spoons of sugar in her cup.

Letitia studied her.

Mrs. Quinn’s lips were bright and tinted red, her face powdered, hair in neat curls.

Letitia hadn’t noticed the makeup that covered the swelling of sleepless nights under Mrs. Quinn’s eyes, or the fine tremble in her hands she’d hidden, and her lips weren’t just crimson from an application of tint—she’d been biting them. Little tears in the flesh peppered her skin.

“Mrs. Quinn,” Letitia intoned as Mrs. Quinn stirred her sugar in, “what is it about your daughter you think I can help with?”

The gentle tone Letitia used caused Mrs. Quinn to whisper as though it were a last confession.

“She’s being haunted by a phantom that attacks her in her sleep,” Mrs. Quinn said with despair, “and if you don’t help her, she must go to an asylum.”

My Review

My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads.

I was granted complimentary access to Behind the Veil in exchange for an honest review as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title with Bewitching Book Tours. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

I was immediately drawn in to this concept of a woman with legitimate scrying powers who uses her ability to bring peace and closure to the families of those who have been lost. The mechanics of how her abilities work, and how horribly wrong everything can go if she’s not careful, are so well planned out and surprisingly unique despite this not being the most unique concept ever covered in occult fiction.

Letitia is a great main and POV character to read! I love her complex inner turmoil, her genuine warmth, and her desire to make the world a better place. It’s easy to get swept up in a story when this is the voice you’re reading and the hero you’re rooting for!

The reason this book didn’t quite blow me away and earn an even higher rating is because I feel like about 45-50% through I blinked, missed a line, and found myself in a different book. I can’t quite put my finger on what changed, specifically, that made me feel that way. Pacing, perhaps? Maybe the pacing changed? I do feel like we got a whole bunch more names to keep track of at around that point. This book also really asked us more and more as the book went on to care about Abby, but unlike wonderful Letitia and unreliable Alasdair, I don’t feel like we were ever given a reason to truly care about Abby independent of Letitia’s feelings about her.

Overall this is an interesting book and definitely something I would recommend to fans of occult fiction. It also helped me tick a 50-point task off my list for the Spooktober Readathon this year, so that’s a bonus!

About the Author

Beginning a writing journey with an epic 21 book series, Ejay started her author career in 2014 and has taken on the ups and downs of self-publishing with her fantasy series The Last Prophecy since 2016. At the start of 2019, she put the series on the backburner to write Behind the Veil in 25 days, and signed a publishing contract for the gothic noir novel to independent publisher Literary Wanderlust. Behind the Veil is set for release on the October 1st 2021. She resumed self-publishing a scifi series, Queen of Spades released across 2020 and 2021, as well as signing another contract with Literary Wanderlust for NA fantasy, Echo of the Evercry. Believing in more than one path to a career in publishing, Ejay pursues self-publishing alongside querying traditional publishers with multiple manuscripts.

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