Review: The Ghost of Castle Ravenswych by Charlotte Louise Dolan (2013)

Posted January 31, 2025 by Mary Kingswood in Review / 0 Comments

A strange little book, off-the-scale implausible and overwrought. If this had been an older book, from the 80s or 90s, I could have understood it, but for a book that’s not much more than 10 years old, there’s no excuse.

Here’s the premise: When Rowena’s great-uncle dies, and his heir, the new Lord Cheyne, is still away fighting Napoleon, Rowena’s guardian turns up to take care of her, which involves trying to persuade her to marry him, and when she steadfastly refuses, turning to less honourable methods. Frankly, a guardian trying to marry his underage ward for her inheritance is a huge no-no and just as dishonourable, but let that pass. Rowena is fed up with fending him off, and with a whole year to go before she’s of age, she turns to desperate measures – she fakes her own drowning in the local lake. There’s an inquest (without a body?) and Rowena is declared dead by misadventure (still without a body). Happily nobody tries to bury a non-existent body. The guardian takes off, thwarted, and all Rowena has to do is to play dead for the remaining year before she comes of age, and the loyal retainers are happy to assist with this ploy.

Into this scenario comes our hero, Marcus, to take possession of his inheritance, and now Rowena has more of a challenge to keep out of his way in case he discovers her existence. Which of course he soon comes to suspect, finding traces of her perfume, for instance. He becomes convinced there’s a ghost at the castle.

If this were all, this would be quite an unexceptional story, but Marcus is very conveniently prone to bouts of fever after his soldiering, and Rowena is prone to having a look at him while he’s semi-conscious. And not just looking, either. This formerly virtuous maiden (allegedly) finds herself compelled to climb into bed with him and indulge in a certain amount of kissing and cuddling, which even a semi-conscious man is bound to remember as a remarkably pleasant fever-dream.

From this point on, there’s a whole heap of lusting and being unable to keep away from each other, or keep their hands off each other, combined with wildly over the top angsting, and frankly, my eyes were spinning in their sockets. I’m sure this was intended as some kind of Gothic melodrama, but I much prefer my characters and plot a bit more realistic, not to say down-to-earth.

Eventually, hearing the story of Rowena’s ‘death’, Marcus becomes determined to wreak revenge on the unspeakable guardian, and thereupon discovers that Rowena isn’t a ghost at all. At which point they retreat directly to bed, to continue all those feverish dreams. Sigh. Of course they do.

A short book, and if you have a taste for the Gothic maybe it will suit you better than me, but for me it was only a three star read.

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