Grange House

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUL 3, 2000

The language, mores and class distinctions of 19th-century society are faithfully rendered in this atmospheric if overstuffed approximation of a Victorian novel, evoking a fashionable hotel on the coast of Maine in the summer of 1896. Grange House was once the family home of a prosperous quarry owner, but a spinster daughter, reclusive one-time "authoress" Miss Nell Grange, is the only Grange left on the premises; a formidable lady cook and a managing hostess run the hotel. Accompanied by her parents, 17-year-old Maisie Thomas has been a guest at Grange House every summer of her life. She's enthralled with Miss Grange and dreams of being a writer herself. This summer's visit augurs ill, however. A pair of lovers are discovered drowned on a foggy morning, there is a mysterious grave in the woods, and Miss Grange drops strange hints about babies and deaths, drawing Maisie into an examination of the past and conjuring up ghosts. Meanwhile, Maisie's parents are pushing her toward a marriage to Jonathan Lanman, her father's young associate. Maisie's father asserts that marriage "puts solid ground beneath one's feet...a place. You can not have a history without a place." But Maisie is drawn to another guest, imaginative, bantering travel writer Bart Hunnowell. The format is a story within a story: as Miss Grange recounts the often improbable events of her life, Maisie is lost in a blur of fantasy and reality until she begins to doubt even her own identity. The fog, the dense woods and the sea itself are virtual characters in poet Blake's (Full Turn) gothic debut, reflecting the gloom of long-kept secrets. A nighttime assignation in a rowboat finally threatens tragedy, and the narrative plunges to a two-hankie finale.