My Cousin Rachel

tags: classics, Daphne du Maurier, gothic, mystery

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Orphaned at an early age, Philip Ashley is raised by his benevolent older cousin, Ambrose. Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, a man who will love his grand home as much as he does himself. But the cosy world the two construct is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. There he falls in love and marries - and there he dies suddenly. In almost no time at all, the new widow - Philip's cousin Rachel - turns up in England. Despite himself, Philip is drawn to this beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious woman like a moth to the flame. And yet ...might she have had a hand in Ambrose's death?

Philip Ashley at 18 months old was brought up by his cousin Ambrose when his parents died. The trouble started when Ambrose went to Italy for plant specimens and got married to a half Italian half English woman. The English parent of the Countess, as she prefers to be called, is a cousin of Ambrose and Philip. 

Ambrose hadn't come home to England for almost 1 year because he started getting sick and became paranoid that his wife is trying to kill him. He was able to send a few short letters to Philip when cousin Rachel is out. Philip went to Italy to try to rescue Ambrose but he was already late. Ambrose has died and the Countess left immediately after his death so they never met. 

Philip was angry at the gold digger cousin Rachel and imagined her as a huge fat ugly woman who didn't deserve his beloved Ambrose. Cousin Rachel as part of her scheme, came to England and the gullible easy to manipulate Philip instantly fell in love. Cousin Rachel is the opposite of a warty ugly witch. She is pretty, small and with dainty small hands with lovely fingers. Poor Philip. He had no idea and never seen a "real" woman. He doesn't think his childhood girl friend is a woman. She's just there as a girl He is so enamored with Rachel that he couldn't accept that she has a purpose in coming to England. Philip gave in only to discover the truth. He is frustratingly childlike that I wanted to shake him up or slap him upside the head for his naivete. However, all the feelings of aggravations while reading became moot with the great ending. 

Daphne du Maurier is a master of atmospheric superb stories. I loved this book. 

Highly recommended.

Mathilda

 

tags: classics, gothic, short stories

⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Mary Shelley’s shocking, tragic, and some say autobiographical tale of incestuous love. Confined to her deathbed, Mathilda narrates the story of her life. It is a tale of sweeping emotion, shameful secrets, and wretched love. Her mother having died in childbirth, Mathilda is raised by her aunt until the age of sixteen, at which point she happily returns home to live with her father. But he turns deeply melancholic when a young suitor begins to visit Mathilda at their London home, and the idyllic life parent and child once shared turns sour. Pushed to confess his all-consuming love for his own daughter, Mathilda’s father bids her farewell before shame drives him to drown himself. Finally, after years of solitude and grief, Mathilda’s hope for happiness is renewed in the form of a gifted young poet named Woodville. But while his genius is transcendent, and he loves Mathilda dearly, the specter of her father still lingers. Though Mary Shelley wrote Mathilda in 1819, directly after the publication of Frankenstein, her father and publisher, William Godwin, refused to print it. Nearly a century and a half later, in 1959, the manuscript was finally published and has become one of Shelley’s best-known works.

OMG! What did I just read? It's horrible, dull, icky, and regardless of the sad story, I never felt it. I know the synopsis says incestuous but the reason I didn't find it worth my time is the narration about the saddest people on earth and their deaths. The short novel is peppered with the word death. Someone counted 59 in all. 

Mathilda's mother died shortly after her birth, the father who was devastated by the loss of his beloved, left her as a baby with an uncaring aunt so Mathilda never experienced love and affection from anyone. Why she grew up with no neighbors of the same age nor cousins is a mystery and could be the time period this story happened. Whatever...

The father came back after 16 years and the aunt died soon after. Father and daughter lived happily together for less than 1 year but he left again for good because he started feeling another kind of love for her. He sees her dead wife in Mathilda and he was not willing to do anything about it so he drowned himself out in the sea.

Mathilda met a young man, a poet (like her own husband Shelley?) who was engaged to be married to a beautiful 20 year old girl. Guess what? The girl Elinor died just before the wedding.

The narrative was told on Mathilda's deathbed. She purposely went to the garden at night, laid down until it rained to catch cold and fever. Of course, she died! At 20 years old. 

I'm not sure what the point of the story is. 

Not recommended.

The Pale Blue Eye

tags: gothic, historical fiction, mystery 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope. The next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has removed the dead man's heart.

Augustus Landor—who acquired some renown in his years as a New York City police detective—is called in to discreetly investigate. It's a baffling case Landor must pursue in secret, for the scandal could do irreparable damage to the fledgling institution. But he finds help from an unexpected ally—a moody, young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The strange and haunted Southern poet for whom Landor develops a fatherly affection, is named Edgar Allan Poe.

This book was recommended to me when it came out many years ago but I didn't read it because I was disappointed in some books with fictional version of real people *cough* The Alienist*cough*.  After watching the Netflix movie based on this book, I immediately borrowed and devoured the book in 2 days. 

The movie is mostly accurate and some of the dialogue are lifted from the book almost word for word. My only regret is I should have read the book first to know if I would miss the early clues scattered here and there, beginning at around page 50. Maybe I noticed them because I already know the outcome. 

Knowing the ending did not lessen my enjoyment of the book because the parts with Edgar Allan Poe are the highlights of the novel as well as the movie. The book is so much better IMHO and there are many parts from the book that are altered for the movie. Both are highly recommended.

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