This story ended up being every gothic trope mashed together. The old mysterious house, the questionable ghostly presence (or maybe it’s just madness?), the secrets everybody is keeping. Unfortunately, these all too familiar tropes were simply played straight here, making every twist guessable from the first 3 chapters. Since so much of the genre relies on the suspense of the mystery, this left much of the book feeling flat and like we were simply waiting for them to get to the point. Additionally, the characters were very one note, resulting in them feeling like archetypes rather than people.

On top of the story issues, this book featured several typos (to the extent of a character called Linton at one point but never again being referred to as Lion).

The premise seems engaging, but I kept being thrown out of the story by details that seemed out of keeping with the period -- for example, most striking early on was Marsden's request to be called by his given name rather than addressed as Mr. Fisher, which it's nearly impossible to believe anyone would have done in his situation.

Unfortunately, I think this book could have used stronger editing before publication.