Grange House: A Novel by Sarah
Blake
Excellent Re-Invention Of The Gothic Novel!
In 1896, when Maisie Thomas turns 17, her annual summer visit to a hotel
on the coast of Maine marks a turning point - a series of ghostly incidents
casts a shadow over Maisies summer and her future, as she considers the
attentions of two young men.Rich with details of a bygone era, Grange
House is a page-turning novel of literary suspense and romance.
AUTHORBIO: Sarah Blake is a graduate of Yale University and New York
University, where she received her PhD in Victorian literature.She lives in
Evanston, Illinois.
Personal Review: Grange House: A Novel by Sarah Blake
This debut novel is so incredibly lyrical and poetic that I keep going back to
it and just opening it up at a random page and reading a passage here and
there. It's so evocative of Charlotte Bronte that I'm sure the author must
have been influenced heavily by her, which would make sense anyway
because Blake has a degree in Victorian literature. Indeed I believe her

intent is to reinvent the classic Victorian novel in the tradition of Bronte or
Radcliffe, and she really does an admirable job.
This story is set in 19th century America, on the wind-swept coast of
Maine, as 17-year old Maisie Thomas and her parents return to Grange
House for their usual summer holiday. Although Maisie has been coming
with her parents to Grange House every year all of her life, this is the year
that the secrets of Grange House and of her own family begin to emerge,
and Maisie makes some truly earth-shaking discoveries about herself and
her family. On top of all that she must struggle mightily with her own
conflicting desires as she approaches womanhood and tries to find a
balance between the intellectual stimulation and experiences she craves
and the conventions of the times in which she lives.
The summer starts off inauspiciously when a pair of runaway lovers are
found drowned in the sea nearby, one of them a serving girl from Grange
House, and Maisie is drawn into the veiled, convoluted ramblings of Nell
Grange, the woman to whose family the house once belonged and who
still resides in the upper rooms of the house, roaming above the guests'
heads like a restless shadow. A lone, sad grave in the woods hints at a
history still untold, and Maisie soon learns that, willing or not, she will be
the one to tell it.
Don't let the young age of the protagonist put you off. This is not a young
adult novel, although it would be perfectly appropriate for teens (in fact, if
teens want to get a taste of what true, talented writing is (I won't revisit my
unkind thoughts on certain people in the YA market calling themselves
`writers' *cough cough*), I highly recommend it. At any rate, it is definitely a
mainstream adult novel and I would compare it most closely to a
modernized Jane Eyre in style and feel. Blake certainly has the gothic
Victorian atmosphere nailed, complete with fog, rambling old houses,
secrets and muttering old ladies in attics, but without the more
overwrought, eye-rolling dramatics. Maisie is a protagonist any woman can
be proud of, too - and that's saying something coming from me, because I
generally dislike more female protagonists than I like!
The sheer beauty of the language is more than worth the read, as well. It
was like reading poetry in long form, or listening to a perfect melody. Blake
spins out the story slowly, almost tortuously, and I was on tenterhooks until
the very last page. Ask my husband! For the last 10 pages I literally had to
get up and walk around the house, reading as I walked, because I was just
so tensed up and tormented about how it was going to end! I'm such a
sucker, but that only speaks to the talent of this new voice in fiction. I'm all
over this Sarah Blake now and will be watching closely for her follow-up.
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