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Aug. 13th, 2019 10:18 pmThe Silence of Herondale is not particularly wild for a Joan Aiken gothic, but it has faint hints of future wildness to come!
Our Heroine Deborah has just been hired as a governess by a shady woman in a shady situation. Plot twist: her sweet young charge Carreen ... is a world-famous juvenile playwright who, at the age of thirteen, has staged four works on the West End!
Wearied by the exploitation of her youthful fame, Carreen runs away to visit her favorite uncle, picking up a hot but judgy long-lost cousin on the way. Deborah, who's been sent after her, accidentally gets there first and is in quick succession informed that:
a.) the uncle is dead under suspicious circumstances
b.) somebody needs to pet-sit his tetchy menagerie of animals and Deborah's been nominated
c.) if she doesn't handle the boiler just right while she's alone in the house, the building will definitely explode
This is the point where the Gothic got really Gothic for me - I can handle inheritance scandals and suspicious deaths, but emergency home repair is a horror I conscientiously arrange my life never to have to deal with on my own.
(Also I forgot to mention there's an escaped murderer on the loose.)
Eventually Carreen and the hot cousin arrive, and Deborah and the hot cousin immediately put on their Mutual Suspicion Hats, complemented by the hot cousin's Judgy About Home Repair necktie.
DEBORAH: [shows hot cousin a suspiciously cut rope in the pump room designed to send machinery plummeting onto somebody's head]
HOT COUSIN: I cannot? believe? you broke the pump?? now we're going to run out of water, the stove will probably explode -
DEBORAH: um did you miss the MURDER ATTEMPT?
HOT COUSIN: ... maybe.
Not top-tier Aiken, and I'm still fairly confused by what the villain's evil plan actually was, but a perfectly acceptable little emergency airplane Gothic.
Our Heroine Deborah has just been hired as a governess by a shady woman in a shady situation. Plot twist: her sweet young charge Carreen ... is a world-famous juvenile playwright who, at the age of thirteen, has staged four works on the West End!
Wearied by the exploitation of her youthful fame, Carreen runs away to visit her favorite uncle, picking up a hot but judgy long-lost cousin on the way. Deborah, who's been sent after her, accidentally gets there first and is in quick succession informed that:
a.) the uncle is dead under suspicious circumstances
b.) somebody needs to pet-sit his tetchy menagerie of animals and Deborah's been nominated
c.) if she doesn't handle the boiler just right while she's alone in the house, the building will definitely explode
This is the point where the Gothic got really Gothic for me - I can handle inheritance scandals and suspicious deaths, but emergency home repair is a horror I conscientiously arrange my life never to have to deal with on my own.
(Also I forgot to mention there's an escaped murderer on the loose.)
Eventually Carreen and the hot cousin arrive, and Deborah and the hot cousin immediately put on their Mutual Suspicion Hats, complemented by the hot cousin's Judgy About Home Repair necktie.
DEBORAH: [shows hot cousin a suspiciously cut rope in the pump room designed to send machinery plummeting onto somebody's head]
HOT COUSIN: I cannot? believe? you broke the pump?? now we're going to run out of water, the stove will probably explode -
DEBORAH: um did you miss the MURDER ATTEMPT?
HOT COUSIN: ... maybe.
Not top-tier Aiken, and I'm still fairly confused by what the villain's evil plan actually was, but a perfectly acceptable little emergency airplane Gothic.
