Just a wonderful almost-gothic read. A sort of 20th century Jane Eyre without the crazy woman in the attic. Perfect characters---waspish women and pain-ridden men. Crumbling mansions. And ghosts of a sort. Loved it.
Read in 2012 ( )

When newly-orphaned Cassandra Dashwood arrives as governess to little Sophy, the scene seems set for the archetypal romance between young girl and austere widowed employer. But conventions are subverted. Cassandra is to discover that in real life, tragedy, comedy and acute embarrassment are never far apart.
( )

Why wasn't this required reading when I was in high school? ( )

Cassandra, a recently orphaned English girl in her late teens, goes to serve as a governess at a decaying great house. Having unhealthily indulged in reading novels, which she views as guides for life, she has come to the conclusion that she must fall in love with the master of the house. Once she arrives at the estate, however, she discovers that the gentleman is mostly ensconced in his library, where he is deeply engaged in the study of dead languages—even as the house, with its Palladian front, falls to rack and ruin about him. No, Marion is hardly a catch, and he’s apparently quite effeminate to boot—not a man at all (!) according to some of the characters. Cassandra doesn’t seem to notice, or, if she does, she’s quite unbothered.

Marion’s controlling, anxiety-riddled aunt and his two cousins—a bizarre, cat-like woman doctor (who is always prowling about, toying with, and ready to pounce on Cassandra) and her drunkard brother (who is engaged in a desultory affair with a blowsy pub owner)—also reside in the mouldering manor. As for Cassandra’s charge: everyone but the girl’s father (Marion) agrees that Sophy should be at school so she can be properly socialized (and lifted out of the general familial decay). Rather like du Maurier’s Rebecca, the ghost of Marion’s stunningly beautiful dead wife is omnipresent. She was at the centre of a love triangle that contributed to the ruin of the house and the family. Details do, of course, come out, and there is a dramatic, climactic tragedy, about which the reader can summon very little feeling.

I was expecting quite a bit more from Taylor’s second work—a subversion of the gothic novel, I suppose. I didn’t feel that I got it or much of anything at all from this book. It’s somewhat interesting, but inferior to her first work—though there are hints of themes and preoccupations that will populate future novels. ( )

Una novela clásica al mejor estilo Jane Austen. brillante y entretenida. ( )