City News

“Olivia, Olivia, Olivia, Remember this— The shadows are not real. The dreams can never hurt you. And you will be safe as long as you stay away from Gallant.” 

Olivia Prior is a mute orphan with a unique ability to see ghosts and is growing up in the Merilance school for girls. The only remnant of her parents is her mother’s beautifully illustrated journal, which vividly depicts her mother’s descent into madness. The other girls at the orphanage bully and tease her because they know she won’t be able to communicate back. She thinks there is no one left for her until one day, when her life changes forever. A letter is sent to the school inviting Olivia to Gallant, claiming to be from her home. However, when she arrives, the place doesn’t seem like a home. No one seems to recognize Olivia, her “cousin” seems to want her gone, and half-formed ghouls haunt the house in every dark corner and hallway. Soon after her arrival, Olivia begins to notice odd things about the house. She stumbles across a wall in the garden and follows the road beyond it until it leads her back to Gallant, but the house seems to be different. The walls are covered in rotten moss and the cobbles are crumbling. She realizes that this is an alternate Gallant, or a parallel universe, where the ghosts are tangible and the house is haunted by a mysterious figure. Both versions of Gallant have been fighting for generations. Which house will Olivia choose to defend? And what is her mother’s connection to this house?

Gallant was an eerie, paranormal novel that constantly had me questioning which side to be rooting for. It felt almost like a fairy tale with the whimsical, enchanting atmosphere and poetic voice. I also enjoyed the format with chapters that would showcase the mother’s diary so we could see how she slowly lost her mind. Her pages additionally held a few borderline philosophical ideas that could be dismissed as the rants of a madwoman, but I personally enjoyed. 

“Death comes for the roses and the apples, it comes for the mice and the birds. It comes for us all. Why should death stop us from living?”

They included her struggle to decipher the difference between fiction and reality, her encounters with death, and her theories about Gallant. Gradually, the entries in the diary changed from comprehensive to rambling with repeated phrases and crossed out sentences. My favorite character was Olivia. I loved the disability representation, and even though she couldn't speak, plenty was conveyed about her courageous character. Additionally, I appreciated how she wasn’t magically “cured” in the end. The plot, however, was incredibly generic. I felt like I had read the “bullied orphan goes to a magical mansion” trope hundreds of times. When she entered the mansion, I felt like it came out as a hundred pages of worldbuilding and descriptions. The relationships also seemed incredibly underdeveloped. I wanted to see more from Matthew, because his hostility toward Olivia seemed too forced and I would have wanted a greater motive from him.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves ghost stories, gothic estates, and the found family trope. Out of 10, I would give Gallant a 8.5.

Check out Gallant from NBPL!