The House of Brides: 12/08/21

The House of Brides by Jane Cockram is a family drama / mystery with Gothic undertones. Miranda has gone to England to her mother's family after receiving a letter from her cousin. She is drawn there by her mother's famous book, The House of Brides. Shortly after she arrives the house's current "bride" goes missing and Miranda suspects something sinister.

Miranda's in to the house comes when she's hired as a nanny for her young cousins. A house marred by tragedy and dripping with sinister sounding rumors, the novel begins with a Turn of the Screw (1898) vibe.

But with so much of the story's tension being built around the crumbling house and the now closed hotel (after Daphne's accident), the book settles into being a thematic blend between We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) and I Capture the Castle (1948). The Dottie Smith novel is even explicitly mentioned by the characters.

All of Miranda's time at Barnsley House places the novel on the road narrative spectrum as an outlier as the author is Australian. Miranda, returning to her family's ancestral home is part of a family of travelers (33). Her destination is uhoria (CC) to learn the history of the building as well as her mother's life there. Her route there is the cornfield / tkaronto (FF) as represented by the house's lake and it's association with Minerva island.

Four stars

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