Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood
Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for access to an advance copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood
Lauren Blackwood’s debut novel, Within These Wicked Walls, weaves a story of magic, horror, and romance around a Black heroine who is funny, tough, and tender. The author’s tweet about her “Ethiopian-inspired Jane Eyre retelling” made me click the Netgalley link so hard I almost broke a nail.
The novel begins with Andromeda’s arrival at her own version of Thornfield Hall, known to her simply as “the castle.” The impressive structure in the middle of the desert is freezing cold inside, a function of the Evil Eye’s curse upon its wealthy owner.
The curse is why nineteen-year-old Andromeda, a debtera, has been invited to the castle. Both she and the owner, the handsome if oddly childish Magnus Rochester, are seemingly each other’s last chances. He’s hired nearly a dozen debtera before her who failed to lift the curse. And though she’s never cleansed an entire cursed castle, Andromeda desperately needs a patron to vouch for her work. Her mentor Jember threw her out of their home without a reference letter. Now, as an unlicensed debtera, she won’t be able to find work without a wealthy client who can corroborate her skills.
While Andromeda is confident in her abilities, having spent years under Jember’s skilled but abusive tutelage, she’s still unsure if she’ll succeed. She begins crafting protective amulets as soon as she arrives, though the scope of the curse and the secrecy surrounding it make her work difficult. Her attempts to gain more information from her enigmatic and attractive employer result in romance.
Because of course Andromeda and Magnus fall in love! (Didn’t you read Jane Eyre?) Their relationship is by turns adorable, treacly, sweet, and infuriating. Blackwood describes her writing style as “angsty kissing,” which rings true. The fast attraction and subsequent flirtation, fights, and break-up-to-make-up ways aren’t surprising given that the two lovebirds are nineteen and twenty. Okay, maybe it’s a little weird considering the household help keeps disappearing and the walls are bleeding, but hormones gonna hormone.
Falling in love also means Andromeda’s attention is split between her fight to lift the curse and her growing affection for the curse’s target. Considering the power of the evil forces in the castle and Andromeda’s lack of experience with anything quite like it, this is dangerous. She’s afraid to lose Magnus but it’s entirely possible the curse could kill her, him, or both of them if things go sideways.
Within These Wicked Walls is available for pre-order and ships on November 9, 2021.
Related articles and resources
Reading Jane Eyre While Black by Tyrese L. Coleman for Literary Hub
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