This is going to be a difficult book to review, for the simple reason that I don’t believe I have ever once read a book where the author played their cards so close to their chest. It was a very atmospheric book, and a very dark one. If you liked Slatter’s All the Murmuring Bones you’ll probably like this as well, because they deal with similar themes and have a very similar feel.
The book begins with our protagonist - I won’t call her the hero - Asher Todd arriving at the remote estate of the Morwood family, where she’s to take up a post as governess. She’s got something in her carpet bag that she’s terrified someone will discover. And that’s about all I’m prepared to say. Who is she, really? Where is she from, and what’s her history? Why is she really at the Morwood estate? What is she afraid of, and what is she trying to do? You get answers to all of those questions - actually, looking back, I can’t really think of any unanswered questions - but the answers will be spun out slowly, deliberately, and often very subtly. This is a book you’ll want to be able to pay close attention to.
There’s a great deal of thematic overlap with All the Murmuring Bones, in addition to the similar feel. One of the big themes here is how domestic abuse can affect a person, especially how the abuser can continue to exercise a form of “control” even when they are well out of the picture. Here, the survivors often aren’t even aware they’re shaping their behavior to placate someone who can’t be placated (and in some cases here isn’t even to be placated or provoked at all). The other big theme, and I would argue the primary one, is how dehumanizing discrimination can be. The one on display here is sexism, but the lessons work equally well for any kind of bigotry. This world that Asher Todd moves in is highly stratified according to class and gender both; Asher is very aware of the privileges retained by her “betters” and the injustice that automatically puts her on a lower tier by simply being born a woman. It doesn’t matter that Asher is determined, and clever, and caring, and very much cleverer than most; she is a woman, and that is the trait that defines her. Discrimination like this erases identity and renders efforts to improve one’s self futile. It destroys personhood, and Slatter has done a brilliant job of expressing that.
Don’t read this book lightly - I was warned going into it that it was a very dark book, and I was still caught by surprise. Some parts of it are distinctly challenging for me to read. But if you want to give this one a try, it’s well worth it.
Comes out June 28.
Content warnings: sexual assault; domestic violence; animal death.
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