The gothic genre is alive and well (although the current resurgence is now called New or Modern Gothic) with authors like Laura Purcell and Sarah Waters. Sitting squarely in this tradition is the new book by Carmella Lowkis. A Slow and Secret Poison, her second novel, has it all: a crumbling English country house, a generational curse, dark secrets and plenty of things going bump in the night. It is also, at its heart, a dark exploration of the relationship between two fairly toxic and possibly dangerous characters.
Vee Morgan, a twenty-five year old gardener, has started a job at a place called Harfold Manor in the south-west of England. Vee is not quite sure how she landed the job with no references and she using it as a way to change her life after some sort of disaster in Cardiff. But when she arrives she finds the place is a bit of a shambles. The house is under the command of the reclusive last member of the Lascy family – Arabella. Arabella’s parents and all of her brothers have died one by one and she firmly believes that the family is the subject of a curse. So Arabella rarely leaves Harfold Manor which is mostly mothballed, heavily in debt and falling down around her. Vee finds herself becoming obsessed with Arabella and begins to suspect that her interest might be reciprocated. Their growing relationship pulls Vee into the secrets and obsessions of the Lascy clan and potentially into the crosshairs of the family curse.
A Slow and Secret Poison is classic gothic with all of the trimmings. But putting aside some of the melodrama this is at its heart a toxic love story. Vee and Arabella seem to develop feelings for each other but both have dark secrets that they are desperate to keep and both are trying to get something out of the other. Keeping this relationship at its centre makes A Slow and Secret Poison engaging, tense and delightfully twisted, right up to the last sentence.
A Slow and Secret Poison
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