Fyneshade: A Sunday Times Historical Fiction Book of 2023

Product Information

Her charge turns out to be a mentally disabled girl who can barely communicate, and the servants of the house are mostly hostile towards the new governess. Towards the end, that’s precisely what it looks like is going to happen – and oh, how I didn’t want it to. Marta believes she is destined for something much greater than being just the governess but her conceit might be her undoing. There’s nothing I love more than a book filled to the brim with secrets, creepy isolated house and shady characters you aren’t entirely sure of and don’t particularly like. I was born in the City at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, within the sound of Bow Bells - so I really am a true-born cockney!

crashing down and she was at the receiving end of some of the tragedy she had previously been happy to dish out. While I absolutely love the twist of seeing a story through the eyes of a sociopath or villain, it also makes for quite uncomfortable reading. She has no redeeming features, save for one – the fact that she’s utterly oblivious of her vulnerability. It’s Grace, in her own way as ‘uncanny’ as Marta, who thwarts her and impedes her progress with the gorgeous heir, Grace’s brother Vaughan.Besides the setting and the vibe, I also adored Marta, the protagonist and the type of morally grey character that you can’t help but simultaneously admire and loathe to a certain degree.

To be fair, there aren’t many characters to like within the pages of this book but they all play their parts beautifully and bring the story together to an unexpected conclusion. m sure when I reread it then I’ll have changed my mind about the ending, and then I’m pretty sure I’ll change my mind again.but none of the ones I've read mention Jane Eyre, the debt to which was far more overt to my eyes: the governess, the housekeeper, the pupil, the sort of master, the dog, the secret in the locked wing. But I’m not going to say in what way – just as details about the men in the story will not appear in this review – for anything I might say would most definitely ruin your read. I was equally horrified at how Marta treated Grace and yet mystified enough to want to get the answers out of her myself. As holidays are rare things in my life, that can mean I sit on a longed for book for ages sometimes. Marta very much looks down on the other characters in the book and her sense of superiority will not appeal to some readers.

Marta, it turns out, is not what the housekeeper, Mrs Gurney expected either: young and attractive is a concern. Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (published by Faber and Faber) is partly based on that building. Its imagery and intense sense of foreboding far surpasses any other gothic novel I have read in recent years.

It’s Grace who reminds us that Marta isn’t what she seems when we get so embroiled in the story (which is most of the time) and wanting to find out what happens next, that we forget to question the nature of the narrator. Not only that, but one of the few males, young Master Vaughan Pritchard is forbidden to enter the house whilst his father lives. Marta is offered a governess position at Fyneshade following the death of her beloved Grandmere, who was believed to be a witch by the locals. Every year I save one or two books that I’m desperate to read – and keep them until I have a holiday. Arrogant and selfish, she is quick to make enemies and instead of nurturing young Grace, she under-estimates and manipulates her to suit Marta’s scheming plans.