In the Lonely Hours by Shannon Morgan is a classic gothic, spooky read set in the remote Scottish Highlands—and honestly, it isthe atmosphere that is the show stealer.
My Rating
Book Review..
Morgan nails the mood: misty mountains, eerie silence, the haunting Lake of Shadows… It’s all so vividly written that you can practically see it playing out in front of you. The setting is described so richly that it feels like a character in its own right. I wouldn’t call this book a thriller; of course, there are plenty of thriller elements, but the tension never quite reaches that edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting level.
Dual Timelines and Halloween Tragedies...
The story unfolds through a layered, dual timeline narrative, which happens to be one of my favorite storytelling styles. The present-day timeline follows Edie and her teenage daughter, Neve. After inheriting Maundrell Castle in Scotland, Edie—still grieving the loss of her husband—decides to take a leap and uncover the truth about her birth and identity. Neve, on the other hand, is very much an “I know best” teenager. Her love for her mother is clear, but so is her headstrong, impulsive nature.
The second timeline takes us back to 1965, where Halloween seems to bring tragedy to the Maundrell family year after year. This part of the story is much darker, filled with characters who are deeply unlikable—or just outright evil. Lady Elizabeth, the family matriarch, is especially chilling: cold, cruel, and capable of horrific acts, even toward her own children. She’s basically the stuff of childhood nightmares. Amid all this darkness, Lottie and Mungo stand out as the emotional core of the story. Their bond and genuine care for one another offer a rare sense of warmth and humanity.
Curses and Ghosts…
There’s no shortage of mysteries here. Edie’s uncertain parentage, the secrets of Maundrell Castle, the missing Maundrell red diamond and its supposed curse, an overwhelming number of ghosts, a Viking legend tied to Loch na Scáthanna (the Lake of Shadows), and Scottish folklore woven throughout. It sounds like a lot—and it is—but Morgan does an impressive job of blending all these threads into a cohesive, multi-layered historical horror story. Along the way, the novel touches on heavy themes like homophobia, parental neglect, cruelty, abuse, and autism, adding emotional weight beneath the gothic surface.
The book also digs into societal expectations around family reputation, inheritance, and gender roles, particularly through Edie’s search for the truth and the mystery of the missing diamond. We also meet morally questionable characters, like a doctor whose treatments of children are deeply unsettling, which adds another layer of unease.
In All…
Despite juggling so many plotlines—family secrets, cursed jewels, forbidden love, and gothic hauntings—Morgan creates a story that feels emotionally rich and thoughtfully constructed. The contrast between the cruelty of characters like Lady Elizabeth and the resilience and love shown by Lottie and Mungo really stands out. That said, what the novel lacks is that true spine-chilling menace you might expect from a ghost story. At times, the characters (and the reader) react to the supernatural with a bit too much calm—almost like, Oh, is that a ghost… let’s get coffee.
Still, Morgan’s prose is undeniably beautiful. The wild, eerie landscape feels alive, and the gothic architecture perfectly mirrors the story’s mix of wonder and dread. It’s slow in places, but the atmosphere and writing pull you in and keep you there. If you love gothic fiction and slow-burning suspense, In the Lonely Hours is definitely worth picking up.
Book Blurb
On a small island in a remote corner of northwest Scotland lies Maundrell castle, owned by its wealthy namesake family for centuries—until now. Edwina Nunn is shocked to learn a relative she never heard of has bequeathed the castle and its land to her. What awaits Edie and her teenage daughter, Neve, is even more startling, for the castle is home to a multitude of ghosts.
Yet there’s a strange beauty in the austere architecture and the eerie, bloody waters of Loch na Scáthanna, the Lake of Shadows. Beguiled by a frightened ghost who gazes longingly out of the castle’s windows, Edie and Neve are drawn to the legends shrouding the island and the mystery of the Maundrell Red—a priceless diamond that disappeared decades before.
Is the gem really cursed, and the cause of the family tragedies that have all occurred on Samhain—Scottish Halloween? As Samhain approaches once more, Edie and Neve race to peel back the dark secrets entwining the living and the dead—a twisted story of bitter cruelty and hidden love—or they will become another Maundrell tragedy trapped in the lonely hours . . .
About The Author
Shannon Morgan has had a nomadic life involving, but not limited to, nearly being shot in Kashmir, playing a marathon 10-hour game of backgammon on the side of the road in Turkey, getting horribly seasick off the coast of Madagascar and milking a camel in the Sahara Desert. More recently, she spends her time with her husband and their four unruly boys in Wiltshire, England, where she collects a worrying number of unusual and rather macabre plants, many of them poisonous as they tend to produce the most interestingly weird flowers.
Shannon is the author of Her Little Flowers, In the Lonely Hours and Grimdark. Her upcoming release is A Penance for Crows, use in 2026.
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