A review by displacedcactus
The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox

dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No
This book had all of the basic components for a Gothic: 
  • Orphaned young woman of meager financial means.  
  • Crumbling manor on the moors.  
  • Servants who know more than they're letting on.  
  • A handsome, charming, wealthy suitor who is definitely up to no good but the heroine doesn't notice.  
  • A rough, gruff man of meager financial means who is clearly soft on the heroine but she doesn't notice.  
  • Spooky shenanigans.

You might think that surely, the author would do some interesting things with these tropes and archetypes, this being 2023 and the Gothic being a well-worn genre. But no. Everything basically turns out how you would probably expect it to if you have ever read a Gothic or watched a Gothic movie.

I was cruising right along with this book, not really loving it but not disliking it enough to DNF, and hoping it would maybe surprise me in the end, but then at around 80% in it just got so over-the-top, the writing seemed to decrease in quality, and I just got completely annoyed.

If you have never read a Gothic before, OR you enjoy the genre and specifically want a predictable version of it, you'll probably enjoy this. But if you're looking for someone to innovate or turn tropes on their head, don't bother picking this up. 
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