Gossip and Gorgons
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4.5 • 38 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
One look could turn you to stone…
The newly married Lord and Lady Wycliff are cordially invited to a house party—to be mocked and ridiculed as entertainment. Wycliff insists on attending to discuss business with the host, while Hannah longs to hide in the library with its rare volumes on the Fae.
Bound to Wycliff even beyond death, Hannah wonders how she will survive the week—when a guest unexpectedly expires. A notorious cad is discovered turned into a statue in the garden. The dead lord had many enemies, including Lord Wycliff.
Hannah’s accord with her husband is tested when a trail of footprints leads to their window. What secret is Wycliff hiding and does he know more about the magical death than he admits? Someone among the house guests has murder on their mind and the newlyweds need to determine who, before anyone else is immortalised as stone…
Customer Reviews
Gossip and Gorgons
Hannah and Wycliff are cute. The story this time around has more emphasis on romance, and also speaks to marriage dynamics and rape culture that still persist today.
However, the fascination with unnatural beings starts taking on racist undertones that go unaddressed with the way Hugh is eager to get a fae on his exam table like an exotic animal, Hannah’s curiosity at “meeting a goblin and his daughter” for the first time, the way she describes Fanny as “unfortunate” for visibly inheriting her goblin ancestry and then some, all the while supposedly supporting the Unnaturals Act of 1812 that claims them equal.
Debt and poverty is in no way a blessing, and for Wycliff to say so reeks of the privileges he has over others who weren’t fortunate enough to have a title and education that grants him access to multiple steady incomes, or receive an invitation to live in a magical gothic-inspired mansion with a kind and compassionate family as soon as he was served an eviction notice.
The plot is predictable, the first clue against the culprit stood out too much, and events were often over-explained. Rehashing information and recapping previous books made for repetitive reading. There are a few typos and a continuity error in that Barnes was previously taking the cover of being a Romanian hamster, but here is referred to as a Hungarian hamster.