The Girl in the Gatehouse, by Julie Klassen

(From the back cover)

Banished from the only home she’s ever known, Mariah Aubrey hides herself away in an abandoned gatehouse on a distant relative’s estate. There, she supports herself…by writing novels in secret.

Captain Matthew Bryant…is intrigued by the beautiful girl in the gatehouse. But there are many things he doesn’t know about this beguiling outcast. Will he risk his plans—and his heart—for a woman shadowed by scandal?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, this is a romance. And I suppose I should give up on the notion that people will believe me when I say that romance isn’t really my thing. But you don’t understand the draw of a free book, even if it is romance…And after all, what respecting female author can resist the idea of a book about a girl who lives in hiding and supports herself by writing books?

Overall, I have to admit that I really enjoyed this book. It’s probably the fastest I’ve read one of my books-for-blogs reads since I came to school, though that may partly be because it came on Thursday and I had what amounted to a three-day weekend to read it in. I’ll admit that it really was the bit about her making her living by writing that made me pick this book up to begin with. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been interested. But I’m glad I did.

The Girl in the Gatehouse is like a mash-up of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, with a healthy dose of Lori Wick and just a smidgen of—believe it or not—(insert well-known mystery novelist here). Set in the early-to-mid eighteen hundreds, The Girl in the Gatehouse tastes very similar to Pride and Prejudice or Lori Wick’s The Princess. It’s very obviously a romance and does nothing to try to conceal the fact, but it reads something like a mystery novel in its pacing. There are many miniature mysteries throughout the story—what is the scandal in Mariah Aubrey’s past? Who is this woman that Captain Bryant is wanting to impress? (Hint, it’s not Mariah. At first.) Why is there a man pacing up and down on the roof of the poorhouse next door? Is the manservant of the estate a good guy or a scoundrel? What does the locked chest Mariah’s aunt bequeathed to her contain? It made for a very interesting read, as all the threads gradually came together to form a coherent and colorful picture.

However, it may have been just a bit much—now, that’s just my personal opinion and I’m not even entirely sure I agree with it myself. I really honestly enjoyed this book. But sometimes there were just too many “convenient” connections. I won’t spoil anything, but there were at least four “plot twists” that I spotted a mile off. That said, there were also at least three that took me completely by surprise.

I loved the characters—the minor characters especially. Mariah and Captain Bryant, while likable and sympathetic characters, were somewhat cookie-cutter characters used in many Christian romances, with a few tweaks to make them “original”. But the secondary characters! From the one-armed Martin to the swashbuckling Captain Prince; the loathsome Hugh Prin-Hallsey to the adorable little singer Maggie, and the elderly twin sisters Agnes and Amy, the cast of secondary characters was absolutely delicious. Captain Bryant’s friend William Hart deserves a novel of his own, and the conniving and slimy Hugh made me cringe whenever he made an appearance.

My only other complaint for this novel would be one purely of what you might call a personal pet peeve. There were far too many “M” names. I tend to read (it’s a bad habit, but it helps me read so fast) by registering the size and shape of words rather than by individual letters. So if I’m not paying attention, “Matthew”, “Martin,” “Maggie,” and “Mariah” can all look very much alike. This led to confusion on at least one occasion where I read a whole chapter thinking that the person interacting with Mariah was Martin, when it was actually Matthew. Made so much more sense once I realized what was going on!

I think my favorite part of this book was the fact that Mariah is a secret authoress. In a time when women were not considered smart enough to write, and those who did were thought to be somewhat base, Mariah publishes her novels under the name “Lady A,” (presumably for Aubrey, but having recently read The Scarlet Letter and considering that Mariah has a shadowed past, it seemed fortuitous) and ends up getting some people complaining that her book is too good to have been written by a women. It must, they say, have been written by a man. Considering that Jane Austen herself was never accredited with her writing during her lifetime, it was a fascinating piece of history to discover.

The Brownie gives The Girl in the Gatehouse a mild five quills. Anyone who enjoys the works of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, or Lori Wick will probably love this novel—and any girl who has ever dreamed of living in a sweet little cottage, spending all her time writing, and then being wooed by a handsome, honorable man will enjoy it as well. I know I did!

~Brownie