Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to leave her guardians’ home in Halifax, Canada. Not only is she wildly in love with a naval officer, Emeline also chafes at the restrictions of (the very appropriately named) Mrs. Shackleton. The sooner her dashing lieutenant can whisk her away to Bermuda, the better. Readers can probably guess from the title that things will not go to plan for our young heroine. The Third Wife of Faraday House, by B.R. Myers, is full of surprises for Emeline and for us.
After a social disaster at a ball, in which Emeline is caught in a clinch with her lieutenant, Mrs. Shackleton kicks her own plans to get her ward hitched into high gear. As everyone in Halifax knows about Emeline’s indiscretion, Mrs. Shackleton and her husband arrange for Emeline to be married to the mysterious Captain Graves. All Emeline knows about her new fiance is that he has already had two wives and that they both died in childbirth…except, that turns out to be a lie. The second Mrs. Graves is still alive, if not well. She is expected to pass any moment now.
The atmosphere of Faraday house would be unbearably awkward if it wasn’t so sinister. Captain Graves is more concerned with getting married—and conceiving an heir to his property—than with his ailing (but very much alive) wife. The servants, Mr. and Mrs. ???, are even more worrisome. And then there are the dreams. On her first night, Emeline starts to have strange dreams about the first Mrs. Graves. The mysteries at Faraday House pull Emeline in. This is where the book hooked me; I found Emeline a much more engaging protagonist once she stopped thinking about the remote possibility of rescue by her lieutenant and started to pay attention to the possibly deadly situation at Faraday House. (Emeline’s naivety about this officer is a little frustrating. He’s clearly a cad.)
There was a jarring pair of anachronisms that threw me out of The Third Wife of Faraday House* but, except for these, I really enjoyed this Gothic tale of surprises. Readers looking for a bit of an escape—and who don’t mind the odd anachronism or Emeline’s early cluelessness about a man who is only interested in getting into her pantaloons—will have fun with this one.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
* This book is set in 1816, so I was very startled when characters referenced the germ theory of disease and extremely startled when they used the word virus as a cause of disease. Germ theory wasn’t widely accepted in Western medicine until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first disease-causing virus was only identified in 1898.