Murkmere (review)

Pragmatic Aggie is looking forward to the wages she will earn as the companion to the mysterious ward of Murkmere, the gloomy estate near her village where her mother worked as a girl. She nonetheless receives a chilly welcome from Leah, her charge, who is wildly possessive of the Master, heretical in Aggie's orthodox eyes, and given to wandering off to forbidden parts of the mere to commune with the swans. Elliott produces a specimen Gothic novel here, complete with a crippled master, a crumbling tower, a handsome but treacherous steward, a strange and haughty ward, a mystery that broods over them all, and an intrepid ingénue determined to set things right. Her prose even occasionally attains the overwrought strains of the genre ("leafless trees glistening like sucked bones"), but she has neglected the breast-heaving action that characterizes the form in favor of overextended development of atmosphere. Even with the sluggish pace, the book can't find time to relate many important details of its world; readers are left to fill in myriad gaps regarding the oppressive bird-worship religious system that Silas the steward and the nefarious Lord Protector are exploiting and the Master thinks is bosh. More importantly, though, Elliott provides precious little information regarding the legend of the avia, so that readers unfamiliar with the Swan Maiden tale-type will be left wondering why a tattered swanskin found in the muck near the lake is so important to Leah. The predictable Gothic motifs and format will resonate with readers, however, and those willing to do the imaginative work of reading between the lines could find this an entertaining and slightly more substantive prelude to the paperbacks in the romance spinner rack.