Review: The Asylum by John Harwood

Georgina wakes in an asylum with no memory of the past few weeks having registered under an assumed name with no idea how she got there.  The Doctor tells her she had suffered a seizure the day before and that he has confidence she will regain her memories.  She has him send a telegram to her uncle and is shocked when the response says that Georgina Ferrars is there with him and she is an imposter they had taken in as a guest.

After this revelation, the mystery deepens as she tries to understand what has happened, regain her memories and recover her life.

This was a very eerie, gothic tale.  As a reader, I, like Georgina, wondered what was happening and if, it was a delusion as the doctor insisted.  Her aloneness and fright were palpable at times.

The story unfolds slowly, with the roots of the mystery in the past.  Parts of the story are told in epistolary style with letters from the past helping her fill in the gaps and piece together what had happened. Very engaging.

Terri