Fayne is a gloriously hefty book at over 700 pages, with a story spanning generations. Ann-Marie MacDonald is a master of atmosphere, describing fabrics and sounds and scents so vividly you feel like you are on the moors with The Honourable Charlotte Bell. If you're a fan of Gothic literature there'll be a lot of familiar aspects, but this story is nonetheless modern in its sensibilities and somehow it all works together.

As with MacDonald's other works, there are some really dark and devastating plotlines, which deserve content warnings that I'll hide under a spoiler bar here:

Spoiler

gaslighting and emotional abuse, clitoridectomy, suicide.

But while all the characters are complex and nuanced, the sympathies are firmly on the side of those who are different, open-minded, and accepting.

The story takes a somewhat fantastical turn at the end that I didn't feel I truly needed, and it was hard to get through the last 80 or so pages once I felt I had the ending I was looking for. But overall I really appreciated the opportunity to live in Fayne for a couple of months.