I was very disappointed with this book. It has taken me a year, on and off reading, to finish it finally. When I found out that Jennie Melville was a pseudonym used by Gwendoline Butler, I decided to give it a try. Ms. Butler/Melville is probably better known for her detective mysteries but she did write some Gothic romances. I enjoyed reading "The Red Staircase" by Butler and thought this would be just as well-written. However, this was not so.

The story was full of inconsistencies and I was so confused by timeline events depicted in the first 50 pages that I was constantly rereading it and could not make any sense of it. The narrator (and heroine) was unlovable. Her thoughts and storytelling were dull. The author did a poor job of characterization, especially in describing a central figure in the story. I just didn't get it at all. People behaved so uncharacteristically as well. And to top it off, the villain of the story was introduced very late. The romance never really developed in my opinion. I wish I could give a synopsis of the story but it would be too confusing to do so. If anyone else has read this book, I'd like to compare notes.

I'd give it a "D".