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balletbookworm's review
4.0
3.5 stars rolled up to 4. What started as a delightful sequel to Northanger Abbey with Edward and Catherine now settling into married life at the vicarage took a gruesome swerve halfway through the narrative with several grisly character deaths. Those choices really pulled away from a recreation of Austen’s ironic tone. But it was nice to see all the characters again, including a surprising one, and I read the whole thing in one sitting on a plane ride so it is plotted well.
vesper1931's review
4.0
The Bride of Northanger, is a sequel to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
Catherine Morland has been engaged to Henry Tilney for the past year. A year older and due to her new reading habits, wiser and more steady. Though she still is of a curious nature.
On the eve of their wedding at the family home in Fullerton, Henry relates the curse of the Tilney family as it relates to the wife of the eldest son.
It is when the happy couple visit Northanger soon after their wedding that strange events occur, plus at least one death.
We are introduced to new characters including Eleanor’s husband Viscount Charles Eastham plus the re-introduction of some of the original from canon.
So this well-written delightful book is a mixture of the gothic, mystery and romance. A very enjoyable read.
Catherine Morland has been engaged to Henry Tilney for the past year. A year older and due to her new reading habits, wiser and more steady. Though she still is of a curious nature.
On the eve of their wedding at the family home in Fullerton, Henry relates the curse of the Tilney family as it relates to the wife of the eldest son.
It is when the happy couple visit Northanger soon after their wedding that strange events occur, plus at least one death.
We are introduced to new characters including Eleanor’s husband Viscount Charles Eastham plus the re-introduction of some of the original from canon.
So this well-written delightful book is a mixture of the gothic, mystery and romance. A very enjoyable read.
thefictionaddictionblog's review
5.0
The very beginning of The Bride of Northanger, by Diana Birchell, has Henry Tilney admitting to his bride that actually, yes, the family really is cursed and the curse is on the wives of the eldest son of each generation. Sweet Catherine, newly practical and rational, ignores this because Henry is the second son and they’re not actually going to live full-time at Northanger Abbey anyway.
But this time, the creepy old house really is full of gothic dread. There’s the family curse and some truly insufferable flesh-and-blood relatives, not to mention sightings of ghostly grey lady, an anonymous warning letter left for Catherine, medical mysteries, insane relatives, and all kind of creepy things. At one point, young bride Catherine is informed that family tradition requires a member of the family to stay with a newly-deceased relative, which means she’s about to spend the night alone with a corpse. There’s also a death by impalement on architectural decor, a truly gothic way to go.
In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen flips the Gothic novel, setting up hints of ghostly activity and then giving a mundane explanation. Here, Diana Birchall flips it back, putting a more mature Catherine into an extremely Gothic horror story, with ghosts and curses and imprisonment. But it’s also a reversal of modern haunted-house horror movie, since it’s the wife, not the husband, who ignores any evidence of supernatural disturbance in the house, looking for a rational explanation and insisting that everything is fine.
The Bride of Northanger is a horror novel homage with a twist that plays on what readers expect from a haunted-house heroine. Janeite readers can’t help thinking Austen would approve.
But this time, the creepy old house really is full of gothic dread. There’s the family curse and some truly insufferable flesh-and-blood relatives, not to mention sightings of ghostly grey lady, an anonymous warning letter left for Catherine, medical mysteries, insane relatives, and all kind of creepy things. At one point, young bride Catherine is informed that family tradition requires a member of the family to stay with a newly-deceased relative, which means she’s about to spend the night alone with a corpse. There’s also a death by impalement on architectural decor, a truly gothic way to go.
In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen flips the Gothic novel, setting up hints of ghostly activity and then giving a mundane explanation. Here, Diana Birchall flips it back, putting a more mature Catherine into an extremely Gothic horror story, with ghosts and curses and imprisonment. But it’s also a reversal of modern haunted-house horror movie, since it’s the wife, not the husband, who ignores any evidence of supernatural disturbance in the house, looking for a rational explanation and insisting that everything is fine.
The Bride of Northanger is a horror novel homage with a twist that plays on what readers expect from a haunted-house heroine. Janeite readers can’t help thinking Austen would approve.
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