The Secrets of Hartwood Hall

I had a middling experience with this book.
At the beginning I thought it was lovingly faithful to this gothic spooky horror vibe. Eventually I got frustrated with our protagonist, which: also faithful to the vibe. However, the pacing gets fairly wonky and there's a whole lot dropped in here that makes the resolution into a big info dump and abrupt ending. I appreciate what was being attempted but it didn't work out great in my opinion. Could've used some trimming and some subtlety.

There is no better book to read on a dull and rainy day, than a Gothic mystery. The weather in my part of the world was the backdrop on a wet Sunday for Katie Lumsden's debut novel, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall. The cover and title promised the perfect tale.

What makes this genre such a favorite of mine? Well let me tell you... it's the historical time frame, the run down manor, the village nearby and it's refusal to have anything to do with the manor and it's inhabitants, the whisper of ghosts, the knock in the night, the mixed personalities of the staff, including the handsome gardener, the mystery that surround the Lady of the manor and her son and last but not least the new addition to the manor - a recently widowed governess. Oh - show more and secrets - lots of secrets!

Katie Lumsden's book is set in 1852. She has captured the social strata, manners and mores of the time period. Her descriptions of the setting(s) are rich in detail and provided strong mental pictures for me. The cast of characters is perfect and I really liked Margaret as a lead character. She isn't one to accept all of those rules and expected behaviors. Hers is the only point of view. Lumsden has taken all of those facets I look forward to and added her own touches to the Secrets of Hartwood Hall. The ending caught me off guard as I had expected a different outcome. On reflection it's a fitting one that's perfect.

If you enjoy this genre, than this is a book for you. I quite enjoyed this debut and wouldn't hesitate to pick up her next book. More please! show less

This was absolutely unputdownable; I spent the last 48 hours either reading it or thinking about reading it. What a brilliantly written, gripping book!

After the death of her husband Margaret is left without resources and finds a position as a governess to a ten year old boy in a remote manor house. She quickly realizes that the house is nothing like the places she used to work at before she got married. The staff is scarce for such a large estate, on top of that the villagers spread rumors about the house being haunted and the mistress being a witch. Margaret doesn’t believe in ghosts but something is not right…

I am absolutely amazed by how atmospheric this book is. The tension is so well done that I almost heard eerie music and show more creaking doors in the back of my head. All the sounds at night, strange shadows.. Was that just a light or is someone there? All the whispers, mysterious letters… Why does everyone seem to be hiding something? Even her lover?

There is only Margaret’s pov so we see how the story unfolds through her eyes. Some of my suspicions regarding the mystery were correct but some turns of events I had not expected. I did not love the ending but I have to admit that it made sense (even if it broke my heart a little).

Highly recommended to all mystery and historical fiction lovers!

Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. show less

This novel started out strong and was clearly drawing on the tropes of Victorian novels. However, it was a shambling mess by the deeply unsatisfying end. There were quite a few anachronisms, things you'd think a person who was paying tribute to gothic novels would have at least researched.

The characters' motivations were sometimes overly transparent, and sometimes they just made no sense at all. I feel like there's a message of-- empowerment? something?-- trying to come through here, but it's not ultimately clear what the author is trying to say with this work. No character is particularly nuanced, and I didn't feel that there was any character development at all.

The pacing is also off. The best gothic novels will keep you turning pages show more and will keep adding new developments and new bits of information to keep the reader engaged. When I first started reading, I thought this novel would do the same. However, it instead just repeated the same few events-- I saw a light in the east wing! I saw something moving outside!-- over and over again. By the middle of the novel, it seems like the author is out of ideas about how to move the story forward.

A lot of things happen with no real explanation. I think the main character's partial deafness (not a spoiler; you know this on page one) is probably supposed to be somehow symbolic, but it fails as a symbol and fails to contribute anything to the plot (except to pad the story out from time to time). I don't want to get into spoilers, but some events in the middle of the novel go on and on for no clear purpose.

The author's afterword says that the novel is meant to be "in conversation with Jane Eyre," but that would be a one-sided conversation, because this novel ultimately has nothing to say. show less

Margaret Lennox is recently widowed and newly hired as the governess at the mysterious Hartwood Hall. She is fond of the young boy whom she's been hired to teach—and yet her new employer is hiding secrets.

The most basic summary of this book makes it clear that it's a pastiche of the Victorian Gothic novel. Yet for a pastiche of the genre written by someone who runs a popular YouTube channel devoted to nineteenth-century literature, this is a strangely passionless addition to the genre. If you'd told me this had been written as a writing exercise by someone who'd read nothing more of Victorian literature than Jane Eyre, I'd have believed you. There's no evident infusion of love for the source material here, and the anachronisms are show more glaring. The dialogue is the worst, but Katie Lumsden doesn't appear to have a deep grasp of contemporary sensibilities—my eyebrows rose so high at seeing the widow of a Victorian Church of England clergyman tell her young pupil that it's fine and indeed effective to pray for the dead.

That's downright papist of you, Margaret Lennox!

The other elements of the book—pacing, characterisation, relationships, suspense, denouement/reveal—were all at best mediocre-to-competent. Even the Supposedly Dramatic Lesbian Reveal at the end wasn't enough to spark any interest in me, particularly after the fairly dull hetero romance that dominated much of the book.

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall isn't an outright terrible novel, but I don't see much here either for the casual reader of this genre or for the aficionado. show less

This is very much a modern novel masquerading as a gothic one. I wouldn't mind that so much (including the many anachronisms) if it weren't for the fact that Margaret was a frustrating, unlikable heroine and the only characters worth knowing - Paul and Louis - were forced to suffer time and again. Why? Because of abusive husbands.

I really enjoyed the first part of the book, (hence the 2nd star) but as I got closer and closer to the end, the more frustrated I became. Margaret somehow managed to come across as caring too much and yet completely unfeeling. I saw the Sapphic relationship fairly early on, although there was a slight plot twist there. That didn't even irk me as much as Margaret running around heroically despite recently show more miscarrying a baby AND suffering other injuries. I also feel that joining Lucy and Charlotte (as part of a potential future menàge a trois?) to make a feminist statement was disappointing and too on the nose. I get that Margaret loved Louis/Thomas, but still...

And to think: all that happened in a matter of around 3 months. I'm sure this will appeal to many people, but it didn't do it for me... I wish it had been ghosts. show less

"This book delivers HUGE Jane Eyre vibes, gothic and mysterious Victoriana." ~[a:Sophie Irwin|21698259|Sophie Irwin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (from the back cover)

I saw this book likened to [b:The Silent Companions|35458733|The Silent Companions|Laura Purcell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500725504l/35458733._SY75_.jpg|55746774] and picked it up as my Spooktober book. Had I realized it was much more [a:Charlotte Brontë|1036615|Charlotte Brontë|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1335001351p2/1036615.jpg] than [a:Laura Purcell|6550658|Laura Purcell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1559646503p2/6550658.jpg], I probably would show more have waited to read it and I wouldn't have sat on the proverbial edge of my seat waiting for creepy things to happen. There's definitely a gothic atmosphere here, with a newly-widowed former governess accepting a position in an isolated, half-closed house with a skeleton staff (no actual skeletons amongst them) almost entirely imported from out of town because the locals think the place is haunted.

The governess, Margaret Lennox, is haunted only by her past. Her husband was a controlling clergyman who died after a mysterious illness, leaving everything to his mother. Margaret quickly becomes attached to Louis, her 10-year-old charge, a frail little boy who lives with his widowed mother. She's determined to keep her position at Hartwood Hall, whether that requires ignoring mysterious noises in the closed-off half of the house, giving in to blackmail demands from a vicious maid, or fighting her growing attraction for the sexy, younger gardener.

Overall, I really enjoyed this debut novel, despite it not being quite what I expected. Like several other reviewers, I didn't care for how things ended with the gardener, Paul. Other than concealing the secret about Louis's real mother and her relationship with "Mrs. Eversham" (which wasn't his secret to tell), he was nothing but kind and honest (and a great lay). It's not unreasonable that he thought she wanted the same things as other women of the era. She never once told him that she wanted to keep teaching. One simple conversation might have cleared that up and he could have come with them, instead of being abandoned by his lover AND his employer on the same day that his lover miscarried his baby. It just felt shitty that everyone else gets to run away to France to play Happy Unconventional Family and he gets left behind in Hicksville. show less