The approach to gothic horror that Atwater uses here reminds me of A.G. Slatter's The Path of Thorns: A young governess, Winnie, arrives at a creepy-ass house with the creepy-ass master, but we learn in short order that she is actually the scariest thing around. The difference is that Atwater's approach is fluffier, with an extremely slow romance side plot that was so slow its eventual revelation felt shoehorned in. It was supported, in a way, by Winnie's own character backstory which involved a violent aversion to romantic interest, but since that story itself is the consequence of a history of sexual harrassment, all of it chafed. It was sensitively done, with sympathy and with intention--none of that tedious 'rape builds character'--type of nonsense that weaker authors rely on to build drama, but all the same, I do prefer my books without sexual harrassment, thank you very much.

The plot was twisty and convoluted, almost to the point of confusion, but I think that's because the three key names--Longfell, Hollowvale, and Mourningwood--somehow all looked the same on the page, and I kept getting them mixed up, All the 'o's, I guess. Or maybe it was because I've read some but not all of the previous books in the series, so I kept trying to figure out which of those references were familiar and which are new. Indeed, the plot relies on so much backstory that I found myself wondering if I'd missed a trick--was there some intervening book that set up the current characters? But if so, they don't seem to be part of the traditionally published series, which as far as I can tell does not engage with these characters or set up the current state of faeries in England that holds for this installment. All the same, I bet there are some stories on Patreon or wherever Atwater first published these before the UK publishers picked up the books, because the references to Winnie's sister and friends, who only very briefly write a couple of letters to shift along a bit of plot, felt a lot like they had been originally conceptualized in more depth, and then reused here, rather than created and properly introduced for the purpose of this story.

So, in sum, an enjoyable gothic governess tale, with faeries and romance and a rich backstory that supports a complex mystery whose unravelling does, in the end, allow all to become clear. I disagreed with a couple of the narrative decisions--mostly regarding the romance--but that doesn't mean they were done poorly; just that they were not quite to my taste.