Vaughan Springthorpe is the youngest of five daughters and told throughout her life that the beauty ran out before it got to her. Rather plain and with a lame leg that gives her a quite noticeable limp, her father teaches her to be his assistant solicitor, fearing that she'd never find a suitable husband. After her father's death and using her masculine sounding name, she secures a position at Morton Abbey, organizing and preparing the papers for the sale of the estate. But someone seems intent on scaring her away, trying to enter her room at night, gunshots outside her window, and eerie child's crying on the supposedly vacant second floor. Add in a creepy butler and the owner's taciturn invalid brother, and most solicitors have been scared away in a week. But Vaughan is stubbornly determined, finding a friend in Joe, the gardener and even helping the invalid Nicholas Spencer. But things aren't quite as they seem in this odd house and Vaughan is afraid of falling under the curse herself before completing the job.
The author admits in a note at the end that she takes her inspiration from Frances Hodgson Burnett's book The Secret Garden, so by the middle of the book when Vaughan and Joe help Nick to get better by spending time in the gardens, I was feeling like I've seen it and read it already, but I'm glad I pressed on because the story branched off from there into its own mysterious storyline and I couldn't wait to see how it ended.
I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley. The views and opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and given voluntarily.
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