The story: A woman inherits her former fiance's estate and goes to live there with her daughter while facing antagonism from said fiance's family.

The impression: Very dull, very contrived, amateurish/juvenile writing style. Characters never keep to their resolutions as to their behavior. The love element was sooooooooo sappy. Dialogues did not seem in keeping with the times. When I first opened the book, I did not expect it to be an historical novel. It is set in the late 1800s in Washington, D.C. However, at times, the language (and the behavior) seemed to be more modern.

This was a very silly kind of story and the author tried too hard to make it work. I would not recommend this book to true lovers of Gothic - I can't understand how it passed muster to be published. I'd give it a "D".