Book Review: Ninety-Eight Sabers by Elizabeth Broadbent

Ninety-Eight Sabers is a Southern Gothic novel by Elizabeth Broadbent that examines familial obligation in the most trying of circumstances and suffocating of environments. Ninety-Eight Sabers will be released on the 29th of November through Undertaker Books.

Elizabeth Broadbent left the South Carolina swamps for the Commonwealth of Virginia, where she lives with her three sons and husband. She’s the author of Ink Vine (Undertaker Books), Blood Cypress, coming out 2025 with Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Breaking Neverland, coming in 2026 with Sley House Publications and of course, Ninety-Eight Sabers. Her speculative fiction has appeared with HyphenPunk, Tales to Terrify, If There’s Anyone Left, Peunumbric, and The Cafe Irreal, among other places. During her long career as a journalist, her nonfiction appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, Insider, and ADDitude Magazine.

The Trenholm clan helped found Lower Congaree, South Carolina.Their land is cursed. Their abusive patriarch has croaked. Only heirs who attend the funeral will inherit. But when Truluck Trenholm suffered his eventually-fatal stroke, oldest son Ash turned the haunted plantation into an enormously successful reality show—with all the attendant ethical issues of profiting off its legacy.

Forced to tolerate the intrusion of California producers, grip guys, and cameras, toting a ton of childhood trauma, Ash’s brother and cousins have plenty of animosity for each other, along with a strong aversion to the paranormal shenanigans of their childhood home. But when Truluck’s funeral goes pear-shaped and the cousins are cut out of his will, Hollywood producers offer the deal of a lifetime: they’ll turn the Trenholm’s into witchy Kardashians with a Southern drawl. If the cousins walk away, they’ll lose everything.

But the farm’s high strangeness keeps getting stranger. Something’s happening on Cypress Bend. And filming makes it worse…

Ninety-Eight Sabers is a dark and intense read that analyses a great many things, with a huge cast that has taken me longer to read than books normally do. Not because it was a struggle, or anything negative like that but more because I felt like I was involved in an important study of humanity at times and so read slowly, and often reread passages to make sure I was fully absorbing it all. In many ways, it’s a complex story that holds a mirror up to all of us, through the cast, and examines our history with past horrors (slavery), family loyalties, guilt and desperation. It’s all handled with class and then set in a an environment more familiar to horror readers, the haunted mansion with a splash of “found footage” thrown in too.

Set in South Carolina, I found the location to be very important to the story. This Southern land with it’s suffocating air and swampy surroundings is strange to me, living in London UK, but Elizabeth Broadbent describes the locations masterfully and manages to make me feel like I am there. I can feel the thickness of the air while I read. I can almost taste it. It creates a backdrop that already offers something eerie and dangerous even without the story arc. With that in place, the Trenholm family are examined and even without ghosts and spirits, there is a lot to get stuck in to here. Upon the father’s death, the extended family come home for the funeral and inheritance, back to the place they grew up and have very troubled memories.

Ash has remained at the home while the majority of his family fled, struggling to make ends meet and keep the home operational, he has turned it into a reality show where cameras follow everyone around, constantly filming. The reason for the show is because the mansion is haunted. That is never hinted at – it’s made very clear, very quickly that this place is haunted. Ash has used this to turn the house into a profit making machine. To some of his family, that makes Ash the bad guy, taking a home full of bad memories and turning it into a tourist attraction and television location. To Ash, it’s the only way to keep the house running and provide jobs to the cousins and family that have stayed behind.

The Trenholm family home is set on a plantation and is of historical significance due to it’s history with slavery and the terrible acts that happened on the land, and that the Trenholm family were directly involved in. This next generation of Trenholm’s are suffering with shame, guilt and regret from their families legacy. To some of them, they whole house should be demolished and their legacy torn to shreds in the act. Sullivan, the relation who seems to have taken personal responsibility for every negative action that ever happened here, even from before his birth, struggles the most seeing what Ash is doing as a continuation of the past. Employing people of colour to work on the plantation for the TV Show in some ways carries on the past.

The whole family are damaged in some way and we learn enough about their own past to see that they have suffered greatly at the hands of their father. Plenty of times, that abuse was physical and others, mental but whatever way you cut it, this family have deep rooted issues within themselves that are most often deflected as blame on to each other.

As well as the horrific abuse they have suffered, we have ghosts. Scars left from the Trenholm legacy have left plenty of ghosts in the home, something they have all grown up around. Ghosts of slaves in the kitchen, just standing there like a photograph from the past constantly reminding them, they are bad. Ghosts in their room, in the halls, on the lands – no wonder these kids are damaged but while these ghosts cars are terrifying and damaging reminders of why they must be ashamed, they are nothing compared to the three slender figures that appear, dancing and mocking, warning them that time is coming from them.

All of these factors combine to create a terrible yet classy examination of family life and the lasting legacy of slavery and the conversations still required today. The family dynamic is a strange and awkward read. Ash and Sullivan’s relationship being especially interesting but each member offering their own unique perspective on the overall story. I found the camera crew stuff to be a useful tool to keep things ticking over, especially when they embark on investigations that bring even more tension and a little excitement to the story. The story is well balanced too, considering how much is going on. The family is the focus, but never so much that the surroundings and haunting is forgotten. Similarly while there is a great deal written relating to the still lasting legacy of slavery, it is handled with class and never becomes the sole purpose of the story.

With so many characters, so many important societal topics covered and such well described surroundings, there is a ton of depth to the book. I think you could analyse this story for months and still uncover questions and subtleties you hadn’t fully appreciated previously. In that, it is an astonishingly intelligent piece of art and Elizabeth Broadbent is showing herself to be an author of the highest quality, capable of giving us a scare, and handling complicated but important questions and topics with class and style.

Ninety-Eight Sabers is an emotionally complex story that delivers plenty of tension and scares while also holding a mirror up to all of it’s readers, offering us an opportunity for self reflection.

You can preorder a copy of the excellent Ninety-Eight Sabers by Elizabeth Broadbent from Undertaker Books, here.

Elizabeth Broadbent Links

Bluesky – Substack – Facebook – TikTok – Instagram – Threads – Amazon – Goodreads