Darkwater
by Dorothy Eden
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Description
Fiction. Romance. This classic Gothic romance, hailed by the Boston Globe as "a gem of its species," tells the spine-tingling story of a young woman caught up in an English manor's shadowed, violent past—and confronted by the very real dangers that lie within Fanny Davenport has lived at Darkwater ever since she was brought there as a young orphan. She both loves and detests the forbidding English estate on the moors, haunted by the death of its long-ago mistress. When the scream of a bird show more caught in the chimney pierces the gloom one night, she knows it to be a harbinger of violent things to come. It all begins when Fanny boards a ship to pick up two Chinese children who have been entrusted to her uncle's care. But Adam Marsh, the handsome stranger who hands over the sister and brother, may be an imposter. Then the children's elderly amah disappears. The reappearance of Adam Marsh only raises more questions. Can Fanny trust him? Is he her only ally against a cunning killer waiting to claim one more life? show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A solid 4 star read! Published in 1963, Darkwater is a gothic romance novel with a plot that reminded me a little bit of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, but make it creepy, claustrophobic, and above all, gothic.
It’s got a great foreboding atmosphere, lots of characters, and so much drama throughout. Dorothy Eden is amazing at writing terrible relatives you want to punch in the face, and she includes a whole menagerie of them in Darkwater. The main character, Fanny, is easy to root for, and the two children in the book are especially well written. I tend to guess the endings of books easily, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was actually going on in this one until the very end!
There is some dated racism present within show more the story, unfortunately, but the most racist statements are expressed by Fanny’s awful family members, so it’s clearly not how Dorothy Eden herself felt. show less
It’s got a great foreboding atmosphere, lots of characters, and so much drama throughout. Dorothy Eden is amazing at writing terrible relatives you want to punch in the face, and she includes a whole menagerie of them in Darkwater. The main character, Fanny, is easy to root for, and the two children in the book are especially well written. I tend to guess the endings of books easily, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was actually going on in this one until the very end!
There is some dated racism present within show more the story, unfortunately, but the most racist statements are expressed by Fanny’s awful family members, so it’s clearly not how Dorothy Eden herself felt. show less
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Author Information
68+ Works 2,518 Members
Dorothy Eden was born in Canterbury Plains, New Zealand on April 3, 1912. She worked as a legal secretary before moving to London, England in 1954 to become a full-time writer. She is best known for her writings in the historical, suspense, and Gothic genres. Her first novel, The Singing Shadows, was published in 1940. During her lifetime, she show more wrote more than 40 novels including Let Us Prey, The Vines of Yarrabee, Melbury Square, The Shadow Wife, An Afternoon Walk, The Salamanca Drum, and An Important Family. She also contributed to several magazines including Redbook and Good Housekeeping. She died of cancer on March 4, 1982 at the age of 69. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Alternate titles
- The Bird in the Chimney
- Original publication date
- 1963
- People/Characters
- Fanny Davenport; Adam Marsh
- Important places
- Dartmoor, Devon, England, UK; Darkwater
- First words
- As the swirling smoke of the engine cleared, the little group was etched forever in Fanny's brain--the outlandish figure of the Chinese woman in her black trousers and high-collared smock, and the two children in their quain... (show all)tly old-fashioned clothes, the girl with black hair, stick legs emerging from her pantaloons, and tense eyes staring unwinkingly, the boy smaller, unexpectedly fair, his eyes dreamy and lost.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The sound had been remarkably like Ching Mei's high delightful tinkle of laughter.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 88
- Popularity
- 362,893
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.29)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 9
