Nothing warms me up on these crisp autumn evenings like a good old fashioned gothic novel.
The Secret Heiress has a great twist in being Australian. Although Kate Morton has written some rollicking gothic novels, they have essentially been set in England (despite being imagined in Kate’s Bardon home!) Luke Devenish has set The Secret Heiress in rural Victoria over two generations in the late 1800s. It is a setting so perfect for the gothic genre I cannot believe no one has ever thought of it before.
Ida Garfield is employed as a housemaid by glamorous soon-to-be married Matilda Gregory. Before she can start work though, Matilda suddenly dies and her future becomes less certain.
She is seemingly fortunate to have her employment offer honoured by Matilda’s bereaved fiance Samuel Hackett. No sooner has he re-employed her than he discovers that his fiance was not who she said he was and that she had no claim over the estate.
Like every good gothic novel, all is not what it seems. Although at first we think we know who the Secret Heiress is, it becomes more uncertain as the story progresses.
The lurking mysterious valet Barker is reminiscent of Barrow in Downton Abbey. The hold he has over Samuel Hackett is obvious. Ida does not understand why the master tolerates such insubordination.
The narrative was a little disjointed in parts and it took me a long time to get through the book because I got a bit lost and needed to re-read a few chapters. Having said that, the story was engaging and the plot unpredictable enough that I persevered and I was not disappointed.
