Status Updates From The Housekeeper of Thornhal...

I feel this is a reimagining - kind of - of Jane Eyre… I’m liking it so far. An old house, a grumpy Earl, an unexpected attraction.

3 1/2* rounded up, despite my snark it got more lively near the end, and I like to encourage newer authors to try different things

also was this actually marketed as a gothic? I feel part of my earlier disappointment was that it wasn't measuring up as a gothic read but was it actually sold as one?

villain has shown up with his strawberry blonde curls and he wants his favorite toy back dammit

screwed and tattoo'd h and her family of mice servants are starting to bore me - and what's with Hal? depression? insanity? I've read it twice and still can't figure it out

falling kinda flat now - gothic atmosphere has dissipated rapidly, servants too nice and accepting (where's Mrs Danvers when you need her?), mysterious disappeared H has reappeared too soon and is scarcely mysterious since we're privy to his every burbling thought, story badly needs a villain on-page

—“I think, in fact, you thought of nothing before you so carelessly risked your life.”
—Only then did Rebecca fully realize how incredibly close he was. She hadn’t so much heard the words as felt his breath against her cheek, soft as a caress, & yet cold enough to freeze her blood.

‘The door he had seen so many times in his dreams seemed unreal now. Different. In his nightmares it had been a great impossible barrier, full of ancient magic & dread. It had stood between him & his sister, taunted him as it kept him from her. Yet now, standing before it, Liam saw it in all its acute simplicity. Only a door. And beyond it, only a room.’

‘He really should have let her go. He knew that. She was a liar. Self-confessed. Full of secrets. And temptation. Yet he had not. Against his better judgement, against all reason, he had let her stay. Now, Liam sensed, there would only be trouble.’

‘Breathing deeply, she tried to think back on the dream. It had been pleasant enough, nothing extraordinary, at least not that she could recall. Whereas the nightmares…the nightmares, when her prince finally caught her after all these years, when she could not run fast enough…those were impossible to forget.’

‘Her dress—it would have made any woman of quality shriek in terror. Drab, faded black wool, w/ a high collar & devoid of any adornments. Yet it was a dress that somehow seemed to suit this creature perfectly, in no way distracting from her natural grace & the shape of her body. Voluptuous. Strong. Restrained. Briefly, he longed to tear it from her & liberate all that awaited him beneath it.’

‘This house might be functioning, but there was something more to it…something out of sorts that needed to be set right, & she would find out what. Rebecca was not the sort simply to leave everything as it was because it worked well enough—where was the fun in that?’