I've picked a prompt book and am settling into it nicely. A little Victorian drama along the lines of Wilkie Collins or maybe Henry James's Turn of the Screw has a certain appeal and so far it is turning out to be as good as I hoped it would be. Linda Newbery's YA novel, Set in Stone, has been on my shelves for ages and the weather has even been cooperative. It's cool and rainy and grey outside, which makes for a perfect backdrop for a story just like this one.
The set up is quite traditional in considering the setting and sort of story Newbery is telling. I wanted to say 'predictable' but she may surprise me as it is early days yet and at the moment predictable means comfortable, which is just what I need right now. There are all the necessary elements for a nice Gothic ghost story, or novel of suspense. A plain governess. Two impressionable young women, one a little wild and erratic and the other sickly. A tutor in the form of a penniless artist who must send money back home to a sister and mother. A grand manor house that probably has many secrets. And an absent father/employer.
I like how the story is being told which is from alternate first person viewpoints--Miss Agnew the governess and Samuel Godwin the artist-turned-tutor. There is the occasional letter inserted to make things even more interesting. So, a few impressions of the characters.
Samuel's first glimpse at the younger Miss Farrow, Marianne, as he crosses the Downs on his way to Fourwinds.
"I saw that she was not a woman but a girl--an adolescent girl, with hair wild and loose under her hooded cloak--and no ghost, but a living person, breathing, panting, alarmed."
Miss Agnew's first look at Samuel Godwin.
"He was a tall young man, well-built but not stocky, with springy hair, rich brown in color, brushed back from a shapely forehead. His eyes were grey, his nose straight and his mouth determined; when he answered his voice was deep and well modulated."
And Samuel's first impression of Miss Agnew.
"At first--from the severity of her dress, her straight brown hair parted in the center and pulled back into a bun, and the plainness of her features--I had assumed she was a good few years older than I."
. . . but at closer quarters . . .
"Her skin was fresh and young, her eyes bright and keen as a wren's. I saw that here was a young woman who, conscious of her status, wished to draw no attention to herself through feminine adornment."
As for the elder daughter, Juliana . . .
" . . . so different that the two would hardly be taken for sisters. Smaller in build than Marianne, she gave the appearance of delicacy, even fragility . . ." [not surprising as she had been convalescing from an illness].
Lots of temptation to turn the pages of this story! Are you reading something suitably autumnal right now, too?