“Haunted? This is Rhode Island, not Germany.”
“Agreed.” While it was possible for magic to root itself in inanimate objects, it had become so rare — especially in a place as new as the States — that the claim felt incredible. [loc. 260]
Rhode Island, 1846: Merritt Fernsby, moderately successful novelist, has inherited remote Whimbrel Island in Naragansett Bay, and the house that stands there, unoccupied for years and reputedly haunted. Merritt is pleased by the prospect of a solitary writing retreat, but quickly realises that the house is magically active, and that it will not let him leave. Enter -- literally -- Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms, an experienced consultant who nannies the house into compliance, recruits some staff, and helps Merritt make sense of his new home.
Both Hulda and Merritt have secrets in their pasts, failures and betrayals that have made them wary of emotional involvement. Hulda's experiences at Gorse House, indeed, come back to haunt her; and Merritt, encountering his former fiancee at a concert, discovers that the defining tragedy of his life did not play out quite as he'd thought. His growing regard for Hulda, and her determination to repress her own attraction to him, resolve very satisfactorily, as does the plight of Whimbrel House and its unmoored spirit.
This is the first in a promising new series. There was slightly too much explicit worldbuilding for my taste (though Merritt's blithe ignorance, borne of an American education that doesn't really cover magic except as a historical phenomenon, gives Hulda a good excuse to explain everything) and I felt that the villain(s) of the story, though definitively villainous, could have been treated more sympathetically. I did enjoy this, though: I think it was the first of Holmberg's novels that I'd read (though there are several in the TBR) and I'd be interested to see more in this world.
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