The Secrets of Hartwood Hall

Margaret Lennox is a widow and gains a position of a governess for a young boy Louis. Hartwood Hall is a sprawling old house with its own secrets.

I always enjoy books about old houses with secrets and this was no exception. I do think the author has a love for gothic fiction and think she has thrown everything from that genre into this novel.

Our main character Margaret is a governess with her own secrets as always. The house has an eerie feel to it with things that go bump in the night. Margaret is told nobody ever goes into the east wing, it's out of bounds. Her employer Mrs Evesham has her own secrets too. Mustn't forget the sly maid with her own agenda. There is a love interest with the handsome gardener, does he have something to show more hide. So you can see this novel does have a lot in it that is sometimes expected in a gothic tale.

All being said I did enjoy this book. There was plenty to keep me entertained and I didn't get bored. I didn't quite quess the ending but did predict some of the plot. I just felt however that there wasn't anything new in the story and was classic gothic mystery about family secrets.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the book to review. 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

Mrs. Margaret Lennox is a twenty-nine-year-old widow whose late husband, Richard, left her penniless. She applies for a position as a governess for ten-year-old Louis Eversham, who lives with his mother and a small staff of servants in Hartwood Hall, a reputedly haunted English estate. After Margaret is hired, she is delighted to meet her bright and curious student. However, she is alarmed when she sees candles lit where there should be none, hears strange noises at night, and sees unidentified figures who appear suddenly and quickly vanish.

In "The Secrets of Hartwood Hall," by Katie Lumsden, Margaret recalls her unhappy marriage to someone she did not love. She hopes to put the past behind her, and tries not to dwell too much on what show more cannot be changed. Meanwhile, her employer sternly warns Margaret never to visit the mansion's east wing and to keep Louis close to home at all times. As the story progresses, Margaret meets and falls in love with Paul Carter, a handsome man who tends to Hartwood Hall's extensive gardens.

For much of the book, we are in the dark as to what is really going on. Why is Mrs. Eversham so anxious about Louis's safety? What happened to her older child, a daughter named Isabella? We meet villains who are determined to destroy Margaret's and Mrs. Eversham's lives, and matters comes to a head when the truth finally emerges. This is a competently written novel with an intriguing plot and evocative descriptive writing. Although it has limited character development, this work of fiction holds our interest, especially when a daring Margaret takes foolhardy risks that could endanger her future. "The Secrets of Hartwood Hall" sheds light on the restrictions that held women back in the mid-nineteenth century; society's prejudice against those who rebel against its norms; and the exorbitant price paid by those who are forced to live a lie. 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

Maybe I should read Jane Eyre already. I liked this, it felt very classic gothic mystery but slightly more satisfying than those usually end up being.

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