I first read about this on the Library Things Early Reviewers page and then kept seeing it compared to Wuthering Heights & Rebecca. That was enough to make me want to read it. I went into it expecting shades of gothic novels with some romance thrown in. What I got was mostly characters thinking about sex, wishing they were having sex, or actually having sex. Which just isn't what I want to read about.Things I liked: the cover design, the premise (I'm always interested in mail order bride stories), and the following quote:
"Love and money. She could not believe that her life, as barren and as aimless as it had been, would end without either love or money. She could not, would not accept that as a fact, because to accept it now would mean that the end had already come and gone.
She was determined, cold as steel. She would not live without at least some portion of the two things she knew were necessary as a minimum to sustain life. She had spent her years believing that they would come, in time. She believed an angel would come down from heaven and bless her with riches as she had been blessed with beauty. She believed in the miraculous. Or she had, until she reached an age when, all of a sudden, she realized that the life she was living was, in fact, her life." (p.19)
Overall I was disappointed in this book but I think it was because I went in with such high expectations. Comparisons to Wuthering Heights and Rebecca are way over the top for this one. I was also reminded of The Thirteenth Tale which I did enjoy tremendously. The Thirteenth Tale fulfilled my expectations and the many gothic comparisons it received in reviews. I wonder if there are any other modern gothic books out there that aren't super creep/graphic/etc.
