When an author like Adrian Tchaikovsky writes something in a classical genre like gothic horror, I'm always curious to see how it is made unique; with Preaching to the Choir, we have Tchaikovsky's interpretation of such a classic motif as the bride to be learning about the secrets of her political family, in a heavy atmospherical proposal that still has those touches that makes you immediately recognise the author.

A story centered on Elena Mendes, who finds herself in the middle of a family gathering at the ancestral house of her boyfriend, Ross. He comes from one of those old, wealthy families, almost as antique as the house itself; Elena is not exactly thrilled to be in the middle of all of this, but when strange things start to happen, we soon discover there's more behind Ross' lineage and how they survive in the time.

A great take on the "ancient house/ancient lineage" motif, especially as Tchaikovsky gets the most building the atmosphere, creating that sensation that something onerous is happening; the outsider, Elena, is slowly trapped into the mystery, almost by an accident as the family didn't plan for somebody not related to the lineage. She wants to save Ross and the younger generation, but things will get progressively darker, submerging us into the secrets of the family.

In general, I found this to be a quite enjoyable bite of what Tchaikovsky can do outside of his usual genres (even if you could argue this is adjacent towards fantasy/sci-fi); said that, I think it could have benefited from being a bit longer, especially as I felt some concepts ended being under developed. Overall, another great entry in the Terrible Worlds series.