The Death of Jane Lawrence

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.