📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚The Death of Jane Lawrence
AUTHOR: Caitlin Starling @authorcstarling
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press @stmartinspress
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2 + 🐢
Published: October 5, 2021
The Review 📚 The Death of Jane Lawrence
✨ The Title/Cover Draw:
- This was a pick coming up for the Literally Dead book club by #BooksAndLaLa and I was able to get an advanced copy to read from @Netgalley and St Martin’s Press.
💜 What I liked:
- The story is truly in the gothic / horror theme. It reminded me a lot of Rebecca or Crimson Peak in that the main character, Jane, marries a man she barely knows whose previous wife is dead. There are some major creep vibes and body horror here.
😱 What I didn’t like:
- This book is awesome for like ¾ of it and then it gets weird. I can’t explain why or even tell you any explanation as I have no idea what exactly happened. Ok, that’s an over exaggeration. But if you like strange tales, this one’s for you!
🚦 My face at the end: 🤪
💭 3 Reasons to Read:
- 1. Gothic horror house
- 2. Distorted reality
- 3. Magic – real or not?
🕧 Mini-Summary:
- Jane offers to marry Augustine Lawrence, a doctor with a mysterious past and secrets in every corner of his forbidden house.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Received from Netgalley.
📘 Summary 📚 The Death of Jane Lawrence
Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him.
By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to. Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.