This gothic horror story follows Jane Shoringfield in an alternate version of post war England. She is determined to find a husband and get married so she doesn't need to move from the town she's grown accustomed to. The man that meets her calculation is Dr Augustine Lawrence and he agrees to her proposition on one condition - that she will never spend a night at his residence Lindridge Hall. Jane agrees, and the two enter into a marriage of convenience. However, after an accident strands Jane at Lindridge Hall, she finds Lawrence confused and paranoid. As Jane spends more time at Lindridge Hall, she begins to find the skeletons in her new husband's closet.
TW/CW: medical procedures, pregnancy loss
The setting of this book was phenomenal. I love a good rundown estate on the edge of town and book really delivered. I really enjoyed the mythos and mystery surrounding Lindridge Hall and the Lawrence family. I found the descriptions of the home to be perfectly balanced between giving us the information we need and setting a really nice atmosphere. I really liked the details we get around Augustine's medical practice and his collection of specimens. I also liked the details we get about Jane's home before they were married and Augustine's medical office/apartment but the core of the story is really Lindridge Hall. Starling does a great job of laying down the breadcrumbs and little questions that get answered later on as we peel back more and more layers to the story. I think these stories can sometimes rely too heavily on the spooky house aspect and it can come off as a bit cartoonish. In this case, however, I didn't find it to be overdone at all. While there were some rumors that Jane finds out about, it isn't like the town is terrified of Augustine. If anything, the general town seems to really like Augustine and respect him as the town doctor.
I liked the characters of Jane and Augustine and their budding relationship. I found both of them to be really set in their characteristics but still had enough room for growth. They really seemed to be a really good match and I was excited to see how they would work through this situation together. There were some romantic elements but I didn't really find the romance arc of the story to be as well developed as I would have liked. Now, this isn't a romance book and it isn't marketed as one, but in order for certain plot points to advance, Jane and Augustine need to have a certain level of feelings for each other and I just didn't feel like there was enough development for my personal liking. I do wish we would have gotten some more of Jane and Augustine working together. We do get some scenes of them working in the medical office together which I really liked and showed how well they worked together as a team. The book takes place only over a couple of weeks, but I do think there was a good amount of character development during that time.
I did find the third act pacing was slower than I wanted it to be. There's a certain time limit that Jane has and we go through each day of that time limit pretty in depth. The actions Jane takes during this time are pretty repetitive which further add to the pacing dragging. I think if the time frame had been a few days shorter, then it would have helped the pacing along. I did find the plot and tension moving forward during this time, but not quickly or dramatically enough to out-shine the pacing issue I was having. I found this problem did lessen the overall impact of the climax of the story and it was the main issue I had with the story. I liked the substance and plot points we were hitting during this last third, but I wanted the delivery method to be a bit different.
The supernatural elements of the story were really well woven into the other plot points and wasn't overpowering. I really liked the way the elements were introduced to the story and how skeptical Jane was at the beginning. She's very mathematically minded and I thought the way she processed the information she was getting from these different sources. I also loved how her logical approach continued even when faced with aspects that she initially found unbelievable. I did think the story was going to be more of Jane and Augustine teaming up together but it was really Jane's journey that we were following. I will say that some of the supernatural elements were not fully explained, which I personally thought really worked well with the other aspects of the plot but I know some readers like a more structured explanation of the events that happen in the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The setting was exactly what I want in a gothic horror and I found the characters to be well developed. I did find the pacing to drag a bit toward the end, but overall I was really invested in the plot. I thought the supernatural elements were well developed and well integrated into the story.
Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for review.
Expected publication date is October 5, 2021.
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