| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Low (Aside from some spells and a crow attack) Back Cover: “Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place. The prominent families in town are the Blairs, wealthy merchants, and the Sproules, gentlemen farmers. It might be possible, just barely, to count the Cauleys, who own the Inn at Sealey Head. Raven Sproule, who speaks of nothing but horses, is courting Gwyneth Blair. Gwyneth, who prefers to speak of books, fancies Judd Cauley. On the outskirts of town is the one truly great house, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying in spite of everything her doctor, her maid, and her maid's mother, the eccentric herbalist, can manage to do for her. All of them—and a few intriguing strangers—have a role to play in an ancient story of magic that will explain why at sunset everyone in Sealey Head hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. And why sometimes the doors at Aislinn House open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses...” |
I was a bit startled by the villain's secret identity. Maybe I should have expected it, but there were so many secret identities to figure out that I didn't quite see it coming, in spite of hints. Actually, if this book has one major weakness, it's that there are so many characters with complicated back-stories that it's easy to get them confused. And nearly everyone is hiding some kind of secret, whether it's their background or their real personality or their attraction to another character. Or all three. So there's plenty of mystery to get sorted out, but all the mysteries sometimes collide with each other and become tangled in my mind. It's worth it, though, and at least everyone has distinctive names to help aid identification.
I'm never sure what the purpose is of the stories within the story, which Gwyneth comes up with. I guess they give possibilities of other ways it could have gone, but they don't seem to have too much to do with the plot, except perhaps as some kind of metaphor for Gwyneth's state of mind and view of the world. Possibly her Aunt trying so hard to marry her off translated into a story of a man gambling away his daughter. Having them in there makes the book more interesting, but I'm pretty sure they're also responsible for the lingering feeling I always have that there's something I'm missing.
In any case, it's a good read, and I enjoyed it.