The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling
Where Care Becomes Captivity
When you spend a week reading mostly 3-star reads, you tend to pick up different authors just to see how things land, and oh my god, did I have fun with this one. While I struggle to put into words how genuinely amazing this story is, I think everyone who loves a gothic read should give it a try. I can happily give this 4.5 stars and my seal of approval. If all of this author’s books are this creepy, I think we have officially made friends!
The Graceview Patient is an excellent piece of horror—the kind that unveils itself very slowly amidst the seemingly normal and leaves a reader wondering: when exactly did that normal start getting so weird?
Margaret, the novel’s anchor, is struggling to survive against a backdrop of chronic illness. Her debilitating autoimmune disorder dictates a life riddled with painful and limiting flare-ups, which has led to a cascade of financial and relational crises. Her remote work is vanishing due to her inability to meet firm deadlines, making basic survival—rent, food—a constant uphill battle. This is compounded by a lack of support: her mother leverages Margaret’s condition for attention, her father is absent, and her unpredictable chronic pain has pushed friends away, making social connections a painful gamble.
Desperate for stability and a break from her collapsing life, Margaret jumps at the chance to enroll in a multi-month, in-patient medical trial for a new treatment. This arrangement feels like a lifeline, promising both a potential cure and a necessary, temporary escape from her financial worries. Given my own experiences relying on family and spending significant time in medical settings during cold weather, the setting itself amplified the horror, making the book’s inherent scare factor resonate on a deeply personal level.
And that’s where the novel begins and my review ends, except to say that author Caitlin Starling knows exactly how to make the best use of every element of the tale she’s telling. I enjoyed this so much that I also picked up the audiobook, and the narrator was absolutely stunning in adding to the story’s overall atmosphere and terror. If you like quiet horror, if you like modern-day Gothics, or if you like books that make you deeply uneasy in exactly the right way, The Graceview Patient needs to be on your radar.
