Now that was a gothic! I had previously read Half a Soul, but still need to read the other books in this world.

Also, is there anything hotter in a Victorian novel than when two people touch hands without gloves?

Winnie is hired by an old friend to be a governess to the woman's young and rude grandson. Winnie is not at all a governess but she agrees because she is trying to do her own secret investigation at the house. Upon arriving to the house, she meets a butler... and then the cook says they don't have a butler. Turns out that there are faeries living in the house, and none of the staff can talk about it. Winnie's charge is a brat and his father is sinister, but when the faeries steal the brat, she must team up with the fae butler to rescue the kid and complete her own ~secret mission.~

I loved the dual human/faerie mirror house and the chemistry between Winnie and Mr. Quincy. I didn't really care too much about Winnie's secret mission, but I enjoyed the resolution. As a gothic novel, this had the innocent maiden, creepy house, knives, and ghosts that I enjoy. Plus, our MC is strong and smart and carries knives (biggest benefit of modern novels lol). I was also entertained by Winnie's skeleton cat familiar and am realizing that I really just love necromancy & pets in books?

This book takes place about a generation after Half a Soul. The current Lord Sorcier is a different Lord Sorcier than the one we used to know, but Lady Hollowvale's protection of the workhouse kids is mentioned. This is marked as the beginning of a new series, so while it takes place in the same world, it truly is a spinoff and I expect us to hear about Winnie, Quincy, and/or Robert in later books.

CW: like other gothic novels, themes include threats of sexual violence against the innocent maiden MC including childhood sexual abuse, grooming, and an employer harassing/assaulting his employee. If this is triggering, please be aware of this theme when reading other gothic novels.

5/02/24 *swoons* review later

24/2/24 Still no review, but apparently I'm coming up with a playlist for this book instead?! That is a first for me! Honestly, this book is a melancholy piano music in a book-form and therefore it's no surprise that I liked it so much... The playlist certainly needs more melancholy piano music and piano requiems, but... there is a shortage of ones that would fit this book specifically... You know, I'm tempted to spend my whole review on justifying my music choices, but I'm not going to do that!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2LUNhLtoAcjYB7dLXbNgWu49J9-oaw1u

I also want this to be made into Ghibli-style movie with [a:Júlia Sardà|8529701|Júlia Sardà|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1496823741p2/8529701.jpg] art style (some of the themes are pretty heavy and others scary though, so it wouldn't really be a kid's movie....).


(This picture isn't really illustrative of the book, but the vibe is just right - just the cabin should be creepy big neo-gothic house instead... and... you know, the actual details just aren't right...)

Note: There will be an actual review eventually, it's just... I might need to re-read the book first. I loved this, you can see that I'm not really coherent about it...

This was so cute!!

Poor shelving. This is not a gothic in much of a sense at least halfway through. It’s a cozy Victorian magic story with fairies. Also there is romance and it’s pretty good. If you enjoyed Emily Wilde's encyclopedia of fairies I think this will knock your socks off. I don’t enjoy those types of books so I was not interested.