First sentence: Hen Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she gathered her trim tailor-maid skirt about her with neatness and decorum, being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making her way across muddy London streets.

This was an interesting story. The author wrote [b:The Secret Garden|2998|The Secret Garden|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327873635s/2998.jpg|3186437], so I expected this story-line to be a bit more light-hearted. It had some quite dark places. I just knew the end had to be a happy one, which it was yet it still kept me guessing right up to the last few pages just exactly how this would all come to an end.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I've enjoyed the books Burnett has written for children. I didn't think the writing was as good, nor the character development. Burnett tells us again and again what the various characters are like, but doesn't "show" us. I never really developed sympathy for Emily. And while the story was a good story overall, it could have been a much shorter book. I recommend this book if you're trying to read all that Burnett has written, but not if it's one of your only readings of her. A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and The Lost Prince are much better.

Read on Gutenberg.net, with the vague idea that it would function as comfort reading. The first half did this fairly well, but the second half, holy racism, Batman!

I don't even know why I finished this. I think partly I persisted in the desperate hope that everyone's racism would be shown to be totally unfair and the Indian servant would NOT kill anyone and their suspicions of her would be shown to be wrong, but I don't even know why I was so stupid as to hope for that.

This book is a little hard to describe. It begins as a marriage of convenience romance. Then, that plot is set aside in favor of it becoming a gothic novel. The gothic novel plot gets tossed out the window in a deeply unsatisfying twist. The romance comes back to center stage and transitions from a prosaic, calm sort of love into a full blown Victorian melodrama. The last page returns to the gothic elements after a space of four years and suddenly sums them up in a paragraph or two. Characters are added and promptly forgotten throughout the narration. I understand that the strange pacing is probably due to the fact that this was originally published as two separate novellas which were later knit together.

And yet, there was something engrossing and charming about this novel. Emily, though frustratingly weak-willed and obtuse at times, was kind and loving enough to make up for it. Lord Walderhurst, a stuffy prig, somehow becomes lovable. Even Lady Maria, who had the audacity to insult a new born baby's appearance gets forgiven.

So, while I feel I should be rating this three stars, I am going to give it four simply because I was thoroughly entertained and truly liked the characters despite myself.

Content warning: This was originally published in 1901 and there is casual racism sprinkled throughout the middle of this book. A few passages are difficult to read.

3.5, almost 4

often unintentionally hilarious. the two books are different in tone, the second reading like a vain attempt to be Wilkie Collins. the heroine is stupid. and it is thevirtue of this that leads to her good fortune. racist and classist, plus phrenology.