The Death of Jane Lawrence

This is the most irritating kind of book: something that seems exactly suited to your tastes, has a strong start, and then becomes a hot mess. And you resent every successive flaw all the more because of all the squandered potential.

This, my friends, became a full-on Bitch Eating Crackers of a novel for me.

This starts out as a fun spin on the Gothic novel: our plucky-but-poorly-connected heroine is a socially awkward math nerd who arranges her own marriage by logically analyzing the local bachelor pool and selecting someone who might like a business arrangement of a marriage, rather than a love match. He jumps at the chance because he could use someone with a head for numbers and organization, and . . . any wife of his must never spend the night at Lindridge Hall!!!

Oh, I was so on board! And the (inevitable) first night that circumstances strand her there is suitably creepy and disturbing. Plus there were intimations that we were dealing with a Cosmic Horror angle that really intrigued me.

Alas, the contrivances begin to pile up quickly. The “reasons” why Jane “has to” spend more and more nights at the Hall are so silly they would make a good SNL skit sending up Gothic horror.

Even worse, the arc of the romance is all screwed up. IMHO, a Gothic tale involves a keen attraction, slowly undermined by steadily escalating reasons for doubt. In this book, there's early and ample evidence that he's a lying liar who lies, to the point that Jane's devotion makes no sense (other than It's in the Plot that she has to be driven to do certain things).

Without spoilers, here's an idea of what it's like:

Jane: Augustine, where did that priceless Ming vase in the parlor go?
Augustine: What? We never had a Ming vase. You must have dreamed it.

Jane: Oh, here is the receipt for the Ming vase from the auction house, and a photo of it in the parlor.
Augustine: Oh, right, I guess maybe we had one, but I never paid much attention to it.

Jane: The housekeeper said she helped you move the vase to a different corner three weeks ago.
Augustine: Now that you mention it, yes, I guess I did. I just . . . wanted to keep this as a surprise - I had it refurbished for your upcoming birthday!

Jane: Augustine, I just found the shattered remains of the Ming vase stuffed behind the couch cushions.
Augustine: Well, yes, I must make a clean breast of things and confess that I accidentally knocked it over last week. There, now you know my dark secret - I feel so relieved!

Old school friend of Augustine's, dropping by for no reason: He always hated that Ming vase.

Now this is how you do a gothic romance! Because even though it doesn't spend that much time on describing the dust and the dark hallways, it is committed to its characters, to its love story and to its horror.Jane Shoringfield has everything figured out. Not wanting to be a burden to her adoptive parents when they decide to move to a new city, Jane decides that the best decision is to get married to someone who respects her need for independence. A marriage of convenience in the truest sense. She makes a list of thirteen men and at the top is Augustine Lawrence, the reclusive surgeon, who after some resistance, agrees. What she doesn't expect is their almost immediate connection, the satisfaction that working in her new husband's surgery would bring her, and the desire they would have for each other. She also doesn't expect that hidden inside his crumbling manor is a collection of phantoms and a madness created from dark magic and an even darker guilt.I really love this. The relationship between Jane and Augustine is tender, awkward and incredibly...nerdy? This is what happens when two very introverted, dedicated, logical people meet and fall in love. Jane is deeply relatable in all her awkwardness, but without being embarrassing to read about (I'm thinking of the protagonist of [b:Rebecca 17899948 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948.SX50.jpg 46663] - there is a long tradition of humiliating the heroines of gothic romance novels). Augustine is charming and complex enough that you can see why he is so attractive to Jane, but also recognize the flaws that will become more significant as the story goes on. Because for all this book's sweetness, it's also very dark, gory and spooky. For what it's worth, Jane and Augustine are adorably into it - their wedding rings are made from human bone, after all. I love that Caitlin Starling establishes a world that is not our world, but just adjacent to it - carefully side-stepping the possible religious implications of the magic involved. And I love the magic. I love that it has consequences, I love that it clearly has rules but those rules are not always knowable. And I love the fact that what gives Jane a knack for it is her love of math.This book is also not quiet about what it wants to say. The old, neglected mansion has always been a perfect metaphor for depression, for mistakes that can't be fixed, for the pieces of us that we're most ashamed of and want to hide. This book pulls all that subtlety out into the light, and in Jane it gives us a character that asks “Why hide?” Why be ashamed of the things you can't control? Why hide in the dark when you can choose to act? Augustine is fascinating because he is kind and thoughtful, but also carries a slippery kind of narcissism - the kind that pulls darkness towards him because he believes himself responsible and deserving of that darkness. Jane has to face the question, like a lot of us do throughout our lives - what do you do when you love that person? What are you willing to do for them? And how long can you wait for them to do it for themselves?A lot of reviews for books I've been reading have been talking about “beautiful prose,” and I found that I haven't agreed in many of those cases. Great prose should evoke and every once in a while stand out enough and let you know it's there, but it's primary purpose is to tell you the story in the best way possible. This book does that. Starling's writing is incredible. Which is good because the final act is not for everyone. It's a lot of Jane inside her own head, barely holding on to sanity and reality. And it's not a small section of the book. The climax and finale are also pretty bonkers, and it's only because of the goodwill that the rest of the book established that I trusted that it made any sense at all. Overall, it's satisfying, even if it makes you feel like your head is spinning a bit.The Death of Jane Lawrence is an incredibly successful gothic romance and piece of horror. It doesn't have the full five stars for me because of the deep weirdness of the ending and final act. Even though I enjoyed it, I wanted it to be more refined. But overall, beautiful prose, great story and wonderful characters.

Made it 38% and realized I just didn't care. Jane was so boring (really everyone was. The surgery at the beginning was the most interesting part) and I kept feeling like I was missing things, but no, things just weren't explained well. I didn't understand the time period or setting either. It just wasn't working for me.