Christina Li’s The Manor of Dreams is a haunting tapestry that weaves together generational trauma, star-crossed romance, and supernatural horror into a gothic masterpiece that will leave readers sleeping with the lights on. This adult literary debut from the award-winning YA author marks a bold departure from her previous works Clues to the Universe, Ruby Lost and Found, and True Love and Other Impossible Odds—and it’s a transition that pays off handsomely.
A House with Secrets
The story opens with a shocking revelation at the reading of late Hollywood starlet Vivian Yin’s will. Instead of inheriting their childhood mansion, her daughters Lucille and Rennie discover that their mother has bequeathed the sprawling estate to the Deng family—their former housekeepers who haven’t been seen in thirty-four years. As both families reluctantly share the mansion for one final week, dark secrets begin to bleed through the walls like the sinister roses growing in the decrepit garden.
Li masterfully employs a dual timeline structure, alternating between Vivian’s rise to fame in 1970s Hollywood and the present-day inheritance dispute. This narrative technique allows readers to slowly uncover the horrifying truth about what really happened during that fateful summer of 1990 when both a family and a garden died violent deaths.
Characters Haunted by More Than Memories
Vivian Yin: The Tragic Starlet
Vivian emerges as the story’s beating heart—a complex woman whose Oscar-winning success came at the cost of her very soul. Li’s portrayal of Vivian navigates the treacherous waters of being a Chinese actress in 1970s Hollywood with remarkable nuance. Her relationship with Richard Lowell, her controlling and ultimately abusive husband, is painted with gut-wrenching realism that never feels exploitative.
The Next Generation’s Burden
Lucille, the ambitious lawyer daughter, carries the weight of family expectations while harboring decades-old secrets. Rennie, the failed actress sister, drowns her sorrows in wine and sleeping pills. Their niece Madeline and the Deng daughter Nora form an unexpected connection that mirrors the tragic romance of their predecessors—Ada and Sophie—creating a cyclical pattern of forbidden love that the house seems to feed upon.
Atmospheric Horror That Seeps Into Your Bones
Li’s greatest achievement lies in her creation of the mansion itself as a living, breathing entity. The house doesn’t simply contain ghosts—it generates them, feeding on the inhabitants’ dreams and regrets until they manifest as tangible horrors. The bleeding roses, writhing vines, and crumbling walls create a claustrophobic atmosphere that intensifies as family secrets unravel.
The author’s background in writing for younger audiences serves her well here, as she avoids gratuitous gore in favor of psychological terror. The true horror comes from watching characters we’ve grown to care about slowly realize they’ve been living a lie for thirty-four years.
Themes That Cut Deep
The American Dream’s Dark Side
Li examines how Vivian’s pursuit of the American Dream—wealth, fame, acceptance—becomes a nightmare that consumes not just her but generations that follow. The house represents the hollow promise of success built on others’ exploitation, from the Chinese railroad workers who suffered under the original owner’s ancestors to the domestic workers who enabled Vivian’s Hollywood lifestyle.
Intergenerational Trauma
The novel brilliantly explores how family secrets become inherited wounds. Each generation believes they’re protecting the next by maintaining silence, but this only allows the trauma to fester and eventually explode with supernatural fury.
Love Across Boundaries
The parallel romances between Ada/Sophie and Madeline/Nora highlight how forbidden love can transcend both time and death. Li handles these relationships with sensitivity while using them to expose the class and cultural divisions that still plague American society.
Minor Flaws in an Otherwise Solid Foundation
While The Manor of Dreams succeeds on multiple levels, it occasionally stumbles under the weight of its ambitions. The pace in the middle section drags as Li meticulously reconstructs the events of 1990. Some readers might find the number of viewpoint characters overwhelming, though each voice remains distinct and purposeful.
The supernatural elements, while effectively terrifying, sometimes feel slightly disconnected from the more grounded family drama. The transition between psychological horror and outright ghostly manifestations could have been smoother.
Technical Mastery
Li’s prose adapts beautifully to adult literary fiction, trading her YA accessibility for richer, more complex sentences that mirror the layered nature of the plot. She demonstrates particular skill in writing sensory details—the scent of jasmine mixing with decay, the texture of bleeding roses, the sound of a house literally falling apart.
Her research into 1970s Hollywood and Chinese-American experiences shines through without feeling didactic. The historical backdrop enhances rather than overshadows the personal drama.
In Conversation with the Genre
The Manor of Dreams sits comfortably alongside recent gothic successes like Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House. Like these works, it uses supernatural horror to explore very real social issues—abuse, racism, class exploitation—while maintaining the genre’s essential spine-tingling entertainment value.
A Worthy Addition to Contemporary Gothic Literature
Despite minor pacing issues, The Manor of Dreams delivers a satisfying blend of family saga, gothic horror, and cultural commentary. Li has crafted a book that works on multiple levels: as a spooky page-turner perfect for a stormy night, as a meditation on inherited trauma, and as a love story that transcends death itself.
This isn’t a perfect novel, but it’s an ambitious, largely successful one that announces Li as a writer to watch in the adult market. Her transition from YA to literary horror shows impressive range and maturity.
Final Verdict
The Manor of Dreams is a haunting debut that proves some houses are better left uninherited. Christina Li has given us a gothic tale for our times—one where the real horror isn’t just what goes bump in the night, but the lies we tell ourselves and our children about love, success, and survival in America.
For readers who enjoy atmospheric horror with emotional depth, complex family dynamics, and romance that defies death, this novel offers a richly rewarding experience. Just don’t read it alone in a big house after dark—unless you enjoy the sensation of vines crawling up your spine.
- Perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.