The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

The Last Heir to Blackwood Library / Hester Fox
TO: Graydon House, c2023.
316 p.

I picked this one up because of it's beautiful cover, and it's promise of bookish intrigue. It was another one that was just okay, with some really good bits but underwhelming as a whole. 

In 1929 England, Ivy Ratcliffe inherits Blackwood Abbey and becomes Lady Haywood overnight. She is a very distant relative of the last Haywood, which comes as news to her. At 23, she's at loose ends and desperate for a place to live, so jumps on the bequest despite its conditions. She must live alone at Blackwood Abbey, a place very distant from London and everything she knows. 

She arrives, finding a dour housekeeper and a handsome though brooding caretaker (named Ralph). She first encounters him as her chauffeur, then realizes he does just about everything around the estate. And somehow, Ralph feels so familiar to Ivy as the weeks go on...

The plot started out promising - a crumbling pile, probably haunted, mysterious servants, and a massive and amazing library. There's the ingratiating neighbour who quickly becomes a fiance although Ivy can't quite recall how it happened. And there are strange episodes of amnesia that Ivy slowly comes to realize are stealing away her memories of things that others recall clearly. 

The amnesia bits were a narrative pain, actually. The story jumps suddenly because of them, and because of the writing style it doesn't work as smoothly as simply as having an unreliable narrator. Fox also goes back to the same moments of forgotten drama numerous times, which starts to feel repetitive. However, the story concludes with a bit of a bang -- and with a rather over-the-top ritual intended to raise a demonic monk from the dead that once stopped, kind of just fizzles out. 

It's an uneven story, with potential. I really liked the servants and their story, and felt that the mystery about them as well as the Haywood family history was lots to include. The dusty library with mysterious presences felt a bit like M.R. James' The Tractate Middoth, which was atmospheric and enjoyable. But it didn't hang together for me, and so it's only a middling read. I hope that her next book will have a tighter plot alongside all the atmospheric settings and characterizations.