I read the blurb of this book before I started reading it and honestly, I wasn’t impressed. It seemed like a book that I’d read and it would have romance clichés, wouldn’t have anything particularly special to it, and would honestly just be a bit like every other romance novel ever written. I’m happy to say that this book exceeded some of my expectations, yet, sadly, not others.
Kate’s been invited to spend the summer with Leo and his friends at a castle he’s just inherited in Cornwall. She thinks it’s a golden opportunity for her: a chance to feel like part of the ‘gang,’ and a chance to get with Leo. But when she arrives, she actually finds that the halls of this castle are haunted with the ghost of Elinor, the maid who once lived here when the St. Cloud’s owned it. Now her curse is haunting them all, and could hurt them all just as equally.
Darkmere’s plot was actually extremely impressive, and defeated some of my ideas that I had about it. While there were some romance clichés that I was disappointed to see, I was happy to see that there was a lot of originality to the plot, and I was also really happy to see that Darkmere Castle as a setting was really well thought out, and there was plenty of backstory that’s explored to pad it out as a setting. I’d quite like to know where Helen envisioned Darkmere being built, as in where exactly on the Cornish coastline it would be!
The book also makes a great use of a dual narrative, and whilst at some points I did find it quite confusing and other times really quite scary, the stories of Elinor and Kate are presented in a well-told manner.
Usually I make a complaint about the characters being too under-described, and I feel like I could make a complaint with this in Darkmere as well. However, with regards to the characters, I’m afraid I have a much bigger problem.
I’m disappointed that Darkmere’s male characters are portrayed really negatively. At points I found myself shocked at the level of misogyny that some of the characters displayed, and I found it really damaging. The book showed themes that, to me, are contrary to the themes displayed by a large number of people in society. No matter what you believe, most males treat females with respect, and most of us aren’t going round doing whatever we want for our own gain. Most males respect women, and from what I could tell, Darkmere’s male characters did not accurately represent that fact.
Helen, I was impressed by a large amount of your book. But I was highly disappointed with some of these character traits, and these were a massive setback for me. Sorry Helen.
-
Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
