Midnight Rooms

Starred review from May 13, 2024
Coles astounds in her atmospheric gothic debut set in Victorian England. Orabella has never been expected to amount to much due to her lower-class background and biracial (half-Black, half-white) identity. When her white uncle, who took her in after her parents’ deaths, accrues a massive gambling debt, he barters Orabella as a wife to the mysterious Elias Blakersby to get out from under it. At 26, Orabella has never been with a man, making her nervous but determined to be a good wife. Fortunately, Elias is a kind man who spirits her away to his old but vast estate, Korringhill Manor, and dotes on her. Despite Elias’s apparent dedication to her happiness, life at Korringhill Manor grows increasingly nightmarish. Orabella’s creepy new servants refuse to leave her alone even for a moment, she has spells of dizziness and dissociation, and unexplained bruises show up on her thighs. As her perception of reality distorts, Orabella seeks to uncover the secrets of the Blakersby family before she is subsumed into the dreamlike manor. Coles’s prose is evocative and strange and pairs brilliantly with the gothic tropes she expertly deploys. This is a fever dream of a novel that readers won’t want to wake up from. Agent: Lane Heymont, Tobias Literary.

June 1, 2024

DEBUT Orphaned Orabella, the child of a Black mother and a white father, lives under the care of her paternal uncle in 1840s England. She has been raised in the city as her cousin's companion, but now that her cousin has married, Orabella's uncle is eager to marry her off as well. When the handsome and rich Elias Blakersby, who is white, asks for her hand, Orabella, knowing her options are few, eagerly accepts. Whisked off to the family estate in the countryside, Orabella is separated from everyone and everything she knows. What follows is a classic gothic, told with a deep reverence for and knowledge of the genre. The writing style and common tropes that fans have come to expect are all here--the decaying house, ever-shifting hallways, odd family gatherings, and a deadly, inherited curse. But there is also a modern sensibility that will hook today's readers, with references to (literal) gaslightings and sensual and empowering sex scenes. VERDICT Coles's novel is another stellar example of how marginalized voices are taking a perennially popular genre, previously dominated by white characters and authors, and revitalizing it for 21st-century readers in a manner that honors its history but injects brand-new terrors, similar to Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Hacienda by Isabel Ca�as.

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2024
In 1840 in Bristol, England, 26-year-old biracial woman Orabella Mumthrope spends her days as the unwitting ward of her white aunt and uncle, with no prospects for her future--until a mysterious stranger comes calling with a proposal of marriage. Handsome and charming, Elias Blakersby promises Orabella a life of leisure at Korringhill Manor, his family's country estate, and the naive young woman accepts. Yet shortly after Orabella arrives at her new home, she's plunged into a world of moldering rooms, hidden passageways, hostile family members, and jumpy servants. And why does it seem as if Elias has ulterior motives for her presence there? As Orabella gets closer to the truth, she becomes plagued by visions and increasingly disconnected from reality. Unfolding in heady prose, Coles' atmospheric and evocative debut is a surreal fever dream of a novel that pays homage to classic Gothic tropes while offering a fresh take on the genre. Hand this to fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic (2020), Caitlin Starling's The Death of Jane Lawrence (2021), and Guillermo del Toro's 2016 film, Crimson Peak.

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July 15, 2024
In 1840, an Englishwoman fights for her sanity--and her life--when she marries into an exceedingly rich and mysterious family. Orabella Mumthrope is the 26-year-old orphaned daughter of a white father and a Black mother; she's living with her uncle, who grudgingly puts up with the arrangement, when Elias Blakersby shows up one day asking for her hand in marriage. It's clear from the moment Orabella meets him that not everything is as it seems. Elias' appearance is unkempt and his manner undeniably strange, but Orabella is thoroughly seduced by him and agrees to his proposal, leaving behind her family and friends for a new life at the Blakersby family estate. When Orabella and Elias arrive at Korringhill Manor, she discovers a home that has--in typical gothic fashion--fallen into decay. Elias' family is less than welcoming to his new bride. While some of them are curt and distant, others act far too familiar with Orabella, treating her like a rare creature meant to be on display. Stranger still are the nightmarish bacchanalian dinner parties during which they seem to take on animalistic qualities. Despite Orabella's initial misgivings, Elias convinces her they will have a long and happy life together as long as she does what she's told and stays in her room at night. But the longer Orabella spends locked behind the doors at Korringhill, the harder it becomes to tell reality from dreams. While this novel has many of the trappings of a classic gothic, its supernatural undertones make it stand out. At times it feels like a fever dream, and will undoubtedly leave readers confused as they try to parse out what exactly is happening to Orabella within the dimly lit halls of Korringhill; the narrative becomes increasingly unclear as the story progresses. A hallucinatory and hair-raising gothic horror story that suffers from a disjointed style.

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