2024 short horror-fantasy novel. Castle Drax is falling apart, and the
only way for the family to survive is to sell it, though nobody wants
to.
I should say up front: I just can't work out what this book is
trying to do. I think it may be trying to follow the "cosy fantasy"
idea typified by books like Legends & Lattes and The Spellshop.
The setting is sort of 1920s-ish, though we're clearly not anywhere in
the real world. Various potential purchasers and others vanish into
the summoning circle in the cellar and are never seen again.
'And Lady Vexx?' persisted Lady Rondel. 'I should very much like
to—she is in residence, I suppose?'
'No,' said Count Vexx again.
'Yes,' corrected Lulu. 'After a fashion. She went down to the
cellar.'
'Oh? You confuse me, my dear. When exactly was that?'
'About 1912, wasn't it?'
'About that,' agreed her father.
Eventually the sale plan is shelved, and a paying lodger shows up, but
somehow money worries only remain pressing and don't actually change
anything. Later, the police turn up too, to similar lack of effect.
But the progress is both minimal and glacial. Each of the sixteen
chapters is in effect its own short story, even to the extent of
reintroducing the same characters we've just been reading about,
though I see no evidence that this started as a serialised story;
usually a new problem arises and is immediately resolved, and it may
not ever be mentioned again, or an element of it may become part of
the background. There's no narrative momentum; almost every problem is
of the instant. Characterisation is minimal, mostly just a trait or
two each.
Conceptually it ought to be the Addams Family meeting P. G. Wodehouse
with a tinge of Cold Comfort Farm, but as this book repeatedly
failed to deliver I just found myself reminded of those much more
enjoyable things. I've been seeing this book mentioned a lot just
recently, perhaps because the sequel has just come out; but even
though this ends on a cliffhanger, I don't think I shall be reading
that one.