THE MANOR HOUSE GOVERNESS

A genderfluid governess becomes embroiled in a family’s troubled past in this debut novel.

Bron, who uses he/him pronouns and experiments with his gender representation by dressing in romantic vintage fashions, is fixated on Victorian literature, particularly the works of Jane Austen and the Brontës, taking as his name Brontë Ellis in a nod to sister Emily. When he's offered a position as governess to a 9-year-old girl, Ada, in Cambridgeshire at the aristocratic-sounding Greenwood Manor, he jumps at the chance to make his fantasies of living in the stories he loves a reality. While the manor itself is as grand as he could imagine and his boss, Mr. Edwards, is welcoming and accepting of Bron’s identity, a sense of unease prevails. Ada is oddly precocious and her standoffish older brother, Darcy, at times seems to enjoy needling Bron about the way he dresses. Despite this, Bron finds himself drawn to Darcy, who seems to reciprocate the feelings, particularly after he tells Bron that he's gay. When a fire breaks out unexpectedly in the manor’s library, family secrets begin to come to the surface, including Mr. Edwards’ difficulties accepting his son’s sexuality with the grace and open-mindedness he has shown Bron. As Bron learns more about the family he lives with and works for, it becomes clear that not everyone is who they claim. Castle is clearly a scholar of English literature, borrowing themes and motifs from campus novels, aristocratic satires, romantic novels like Pride and Prejudice, and gothic works like Jane Eyre. But the novel is too intent on making those connections clear; Castle telegraphs them with prolonged conversations on literature and Bron’s own realizations of connections both large and small to fictional works, failing to meet the seeming goal of creating a queer addition to any of the genres the book focuses on. The modern timeframe is also a stumbling point; the Brideshead-esque setting and the eccentricities of the Edwards family are anachronistic and sudden mentions of Facebook are jarring.

Doesn’t quite rise to the legacy it aspires to.