There’s a line that has stuck with me since finishing Gallant. “Home is a choice.” It follows me around, like my shadow, and I have a feeling it will be just as permanent. I am still thinking about it.

Olivia Prior can’t speak, but she observes. Wishes. Hopes. She’s sustained herself in an unforgiving world (and is so relatable after the last two years.) But all that may change — she may not have to be alone anymore — when she’s called to Gallant, a looming house that could be home. But Gallant and its three inhabitants guard a secret. Something is trying to get through the garden wall and it’s calling to Olivia.

As with so many of Schwab’s books, there is an idea at Gallant’s center that satisfies every bone in my body: everything has a shadow. And Olivia finds herself on the cusp of that shadow. In her search for answer about her mother and this big, haunting house, she crosses the threshold. I loved being by her side for her adventures on BOTH sides of the garden wall.

Gallant is haunting and filled with all the good things: family secrets, dreams and nightmares, the line between life and death, an indomitable girl, a journal that asks more questions than it answers. Gallant is the gothic fairy tale (not the fluffy kind, but the dark precautionary ones) that we all need for those rainy days.