Author: Renee Ross
Publisher: Great Owl
Pages: 340
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐
The story starts in New London, Connecticut, in 1892, and is written in the third person point of view of Kate Embry.
Seventeen-year-old Kate and
her older brother, Edward, are travelling to New Hampshire where Kate will live
with Olivia Windham, the maternal grandmother she has never met, while Edward
pursues his studies in medicine. Their mother died in childbirth after giving
birth to Kate, and their father died a few weeks ago.
They arrive at Windcliff, an
imposing mansion that is their grandmother’s home. Kate is shown to her room, a
beautiful and luxurious one, where she sleeps one night.
The next morning,
after Edward leaves, Kate is moved to her ‘new’ room, a dingy place that
contains a narrow cot, a wash stand, a desk and a cabinet. Kate is now the new
serving maid. Working as a scullery and
kitchen maid is hard work, but Kate tries her best. She makes friends with
fellow maid, Clara, and stable hand, Will.
She writes to Edward to
inform him about this strange situation she is in, but he never responds. As her
grandmother’s hostility continues, Kate is determined to find out why she hates
her.
When she finds a grave in the
family graveyard with her own name on it, Kate decides to do whatever it takes
to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Who is buried in the grave? Why
does her grandmother hate her so much? And why is Clara behaving so strangely
with her?
The author drops a few details
here and there about Kate, which helps us to gain a fuller picture of her.
Interestingly,
the author speaks of Kate in an amused, teasing tone that I liked. When the
rain rolls off her bonnet’s brim, she felt like a human fountain. At one
time, Kate wishes that they could travel on top of the train, then changes her
mind when it begins to rain.
There were plenty of errors. She
had ‘borne’ became ‘born’; a ‘contiguous’ facility became a ‘contagious’
facility; 'coarse’ blanket becomes ‘course’ and how she was ‘faring’ became ‘fairing’.
The book would have been
shorter and tighter had much of it been edited out.
None of the characters were
strong. The heroine, Kate, was downright annoying. When she wasn’t playing
He-loves-me-He-loves-me-not games on behalf of Clara, she was playing them for
herself. We never find ourselves rooting for her.
For a romantic hero, with two
women vying for his attention, Will is rather bland and insipid.
And then there is the
annoying badly managed sweetheart ball.
The twist was a damp squib,
one that ten out of ten readers would have easily guessed. I would have
expected a solid reason for Olivia’s hatred of Kate, but there wasn’t any.
The author should at least
have ended the book with Olivia feeling some sort of grudging respect for Kate,
but even that doesn’t happen. And the villain track was so badly constructed.
All in all, neither a strong
Gothic mystery nor a strong romance.
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