I’ve been trying to get more Gothic fiction into my reading lists, and “The Death of Jane Lawrence” by Caitlin Starling definitely hit all of the Gothic notes I was looking for: a mysterious and dilapidated manor, an equally mysterious doctor with a dark secret, a vengeful ghost, and a plucky heroine in way over her head.
Set in an alternate Victorian England, “The Death of Jane Lawrence” follows the eponymous Jane’s efforts to find a suitable husband who will give her the independence she desires with no unnecessary emotional entanglements. She’s a budding mathematician, orphaned in a recent war (hints of the war and its devastating effects are tantalizingly sprinkled throughout the book), and is interested primarily in securing a simple, unencumbered life. And Dr. Augustine Lawrence, who spends his nights alone at his family’s estate, seems the perfect match.
Except, as it turns out, there’s nothing simple nor unencumbered about Dr. Lawrence. Indeed, Jane comes to find that his encumbrances are dark and disturbing indeed, and the curse he’s brought down on himself has placed her in great peril.
This book is steeped in Gothic atmosphere, reveling in the mysteries and ambiguities. There are loose ends that are left dangling, and dark corners that are never illuminated, and I love that about it; it leaves space for the reader’s mind to wander and imagine, and it’s a scarier story for what it doesn’t explain.
