Haley is obsessed with gothic novels (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, etc.) It's to the point where she dresses like she's a princess and has been banned from using the gothic novels for book reports. If she lived in a castle, life would probably be just fine.
One night, when she's walking home from school, she sees a man drowning. She doesn't quite mean to fall in the river but she does manage to rescue him. But the other side of the river isn't the town she left. It's another reality. One that she knows immediately from all of her reading down to and including guessing that there are three brothers who live there.
But in this alternate universe, life is not as easy as it would be in some of Haley's books. It is threatened by a neighboring universe of bile that wants to take over the small universe and then Cecily's own.
This book is amazing in the fact that it builds an entire world while trying to adhere to many of the tropes of the gothic novels. Oldest brother Laurence is the steadfast heir. Cuthbert, the youngest, is feckless having debts despite never having gambled. Montague, the one Haley rescued, is... a middle child.
This book is charming, self-referential in the best ways, and often funny. I love that the prototypical heroine umbrella came in useful and that this adventure Haley figured out which role she truly would play in a gothic novel.
Four and a half stars
Willowweep Manor #1
This book comes out July 20th, 2021
ARC kindly provided by Simon and Schuster's Children Publishing, and NetGalley
Opinions are my own
