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The Veil

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The Veil

By: Rachel Harrison
Narrated by: Louisa Krause
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Summary

Sally has recently left an unfulfilling job to volunteer at a living history museum, where she is assigned to the Death House. Every day, she dons Victorian mourning garb and describes traditional funeral services to tourists. It sounds depressing as hell, but for Sally, it’s less depressing than her tepid marriage to her childhood sweetheart.

This becomes all too clear when she accidentally travels through time and space to a liminal world where the ghosts of the living history museum haunt its grounds. There, she meets and falls hard for Victorian-era pretty boy Nathaniel. Their heady, romantic encounters douse Sally in the sad reality that her marriage is anything but and leave her tempted to join Nathaniel permanently in his realm.

Is Sally’s marriage literally a fate worse than death, or is there another way altogether?

©2021 Rachel Harrison (P)2021 Audible Originals Fantasy Humorous Literature & Fiction Scary Horror Fiction
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The story was unidimensional and naive. I felt irritated by the way the writer over simplified every aspect of the character's life and relationships.
Narration was well done.

Silly

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it is a fun little short story with a very interesting hook. different than I thought it would be

Behind the veil

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I love time travel stories and this one was an original setting and method of time travel. A decent, comical story (was it supposed to be funny? It made me laugh out loud a few times!).

Narration: I didn’t like it. It has confirmed to me that I’m not al that keen on American narrators (I didn’t realise the story took place in USA) and the English accent of Nathaniel was abysmal, darling. I also don’t like when female narrators do a male voice by speaking really gruffly, deeply and in monotone, as it was fine here.

Time travel romance - dodgy English accent!

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Not my favourite Rachel Harrison story, but The Veil has a solid premise worth peering behind.

The Veil promises a glimpse into the afterlife, doubling as a sly metaphor for what we’re willing to sacrifice for love, often without fully grasping the fine print. What makes it stand out is that the danger isn’t a shadowy villain, or a monster under the bed; the real threat is love itself. The seductive pull to abandon our lives and identities in pursuit of an ideal. It works as a sharp critique of how easily we can lose ourselves chasing the epic, all-consuming romance Hollywood is the ultimate prize. That makes the story more insidious than suspenseful. It’s clever and refreshing, if not pulse-quickening.

The ending is both satisfying and empowering. It lands softly, which can feel anticlimactic, but since the story never gathers much momentum, the finish doesn’t derail it.

As a fan of Rachel Harrison, I may have set my expectations too high for such a short story. This isn’t a bad tale by any means, but it’s not one that’s going to linger with me now I’ve put it to rest.

Worth a peek, but it’s not to die for

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Ok for a short story, overtly stupid heroine spoils a good idea that a more independent "spirit" would have enhanced.

Opaque in parts.

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