Back in October, the Sno-Isle Libraries Libby homepage had a curated list of horror books written by a diverse array of authors. I put a hold on a handful of those books, looking for a little fun Halloween reading. Of course, so did a lot of other readers, so I’ve had to wait weeks and even months for some of these books. This leads to a “Nightmare Before Christmas” style melding of spooky season and festive season. At this rate I might be reading horror into the new year!
Not that horror fiction should be relegated to just one season! But I’m not normally a big reader of horror. Because I do much of my reading right before bed, anything that is too intensely disturbing can really impact my sleep if it infects my dreams. That means I have to be careful about my forays into horror, sticking with themes that I feel I can handle.
One genre of horror that I usually do pretty well with is the gothic, and The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling is a recent release in a classic gothic mold. It has all of the requisite elements for a good gothic:
- A young woman who is recently married to or employed by…
- a mysterious man who is vague about his past who lives in…
- a large family manor which is often in a state of some disrepair which…
- the heroine explores at night, wandering around with a candelabra, perhaps dressed in a flowy nightgown, investigating…
- spooky occurrences which may or may not have a supernatural origin.
Starling captures the moody, atmospheric tone of gothic fiction perfectly. That said, the titular Jane’s mysterious husband Augustine is a surgeon who collects medical oddities. His presence injects a certain amount of medical and body horror, accompanied by more gore than you might expect in a gothic. There is also a minor plot point involving pregnancy loss.
The Plot
Jane is a practical young woman who has come to the realization that her life goals would best be served by a very business-like marriage. She comes up with a list of criteria for a husband and of the town’s eligible men, Dr. Lawrence is her top choice. Since the title of the book is The Death of Jane Lawrence we know that she is going to eventually overcome the good doctor’s initial insistence that he must not marry.
After an eventful day at the surgery, where Jane not only proves adept at managing the books (she has already been serving as an accountant for her guardian), but also able to serve as a surgical assistant, sparks fly between the two and they decide that a definitely business-like marriage is a great idea and it will definitely be just that (spoiler: it will not be just that).
Dr. Lawrence has a Bluebeard-esque requirement for Jane, however. He will always spend the night at his ancestral home, and she will spend the night at the surgery. She will never visit the house. Because Jane wants a business-like marriage with no illusions of romance, she agrees. Surely it doesn’t mean anything that she feels a surprising amount of attraction to her husband-to-be.
While the reader might expect that it will take some time for the taboo to be violated, it actually happens rather quickly, although for reasons out of Jane’s control. And once Jane finds herself at the sprawling, crumbling Lawrence mansion, she starts to realize that her husband might have secrets, and that magic might be real.
What I Liked About This Book
I love a practical heroine. Jane has a head for numbers. She appears to be on the spectrum, and has learned to mask to get by in society, but has never really made friends or fit in. She also has lingering trauma from her childhood home town being shelled, and her parents being killed in the war. Both of these factors inform her very practical decision to get married, as she lives in a world where there are not many opportunities for an unwed woman, but she does not feel suited to a romantic marriage.
Jane gets stuff done. She’s not one of those Disney-style heroines who comes in and upsets the staid love interest’s life with her sunshine and whimsy. She’s the sort who simply puts things to rights. She recognizes and appreciates her husband’s attempts at an organization system and builds on that. She doesn’t so much snoop as she comes across hints in the natural course of the task that has been set before her. And when she decides something must be done, whether pleasant or unpleasant, she sets to work with determination and a minimum of whining or dithering.
She’s a very believable character. So often, readers get told that a character has trouble interacting with people and making friends, only to see her naturally charm everyone she meets, because the author wants to make her likeable. Starling doesn’t try to make Jane likeable. Jane doesn’t immediately charm everyone. She makes missteps. She is occasionally callous.
Jane also cuts straight to the point when she discovers evidence of her husband’s secrets. She doesn’t make excuses or talk herself out of asking. She is refreshingly direct. She knows that she deserves the truth.
Some Quibbles
My complaints about The Death of Jane Lawrence are very minor.
The first is that there’s a section that seems to drag, as Jane is figuring out magic and undergoing preparation to attempt to do something major. I understood the story reasons for this section being written the way it was, but for me it slowed the story down and made me a bit impatient.
The second is that there was some uncertainty, for me, about Jane’s prospects as a woman in this world. We are given the impression that a woman pretty much needs to be married, but we meet several of Dr. Lawrence’s female colleagues. If these women were able to go to school and become doctors and have careers, why was it not an option for Jane to continue her education and become an accountant or some similar role?
Third, the book takes place in Great Breltain, a country which was at war with the country of Ruzka. I bet you can guess which two real-world countries these most resemble. While world building is not super important in a gothic that takes place entirely in a single town and a single mansion, these names still stood out to me every time as well, sort of lazy.
Who Will Enjoy This Book?
I recommend The Death of Jane Lawrence to anyone who enjoys gothic horror and prefers their heroines on the practical side. I’d recommend skipping it if you’re squeamish, as some of the surgery scenes can be a bit gruesome. This is not YA, as Jane is in her 20s and Augustine in his 30s, but I don’t think the content in it is any more “mature” than a lot of YA (there is on-page sex but it’s more implicit than explicit), so teen readers who aren’t finding enough moody Gothic content in the YA section can consider giving this one a read, too.
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