The Two Mrs. Carlyles

May 15, 2020
Rindell, who exhibited her own skill at noir romances in The Other Typist (2013), borrows heavily from Charlotte Bront�, du Maurier, and Hitchcock in this gothic yarn about secrets not shared by a young wife and her wealthy older husband. When the San Francisco orphanage where she lives mysteriously burns down, 13-year-old Violet and two older friends--flashy Cora and common-sensical Flossie--end up in a bordello run by Mr. Tackett, who hires the 16-year-olds as dancehall girls and mousy, sensitive Violet as a maid. Two unhappy years later, Violet finds miserly, vicious Tackett dead from a suspiciously violent stomach ailment. Violet, who suffers from strange blackout spells, has reason to worry he's been poisoned. Serendipitously, the 1906 earthquake occurs almost immediately, leveling the bordello with the dead man inside and leaving his money for Violet, Cora, and Flossie to divide. Reinventing herself as a respectable shop girl, Violet is wooed by dashing, wealthy Harry Carlyle, whom Rindell could easily have named Edward Rochester or Maxim de Winter. Harry's first wife, Madeleine, evidently died in the earthquake. Or did she? Harry and Violet agree not to discuss their pasts, one of the novel's many convenient contrivances. Despite Cora's grouchy disapproval, Violet marries Harry with Flossie's support. Enter prune-faced housekeeper Miss Weber. Whether jealous over Harry or loyal to Madeleine, she makes Violet's life miserable in all the ways readers of Victorian melodrama know well. Meanwhile, strange nocturnal events of the standard tinkling piano and lit candle variety lead Violet to fear a ghost is stalking her. Given Harry's flashes of temper and Violet's insecure curiosity, the marriage understandably becomes strained. Then Harry is hospitalized for--guess what--stomach problems! Is he being poisoned, and, if so, by whom? Who may not be whom they seem? Who is a criminal? Or a ghost? Since everything revolves around secrets and distrust, readers may gleefully assume they shouldn't trust Violet as narrator. Or should they? Entertaining escapism but a too-obvious pastiche of classic literary memes.

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July 1, 2020
Rindell's latest historical tale, following Eagle & Crane (2018), takes place in San Francisco, just after the 1908 earthquake. Violet, barely out of her teens, uses the earthquake as an excuse to reinvent herself. Such a major upheaval gives her a chance to start over, away from the friends she made as an orphan, and present herself as a young lady of means. When she meets handsome and eligible widower Harry Carlyle, she leaps at the chance to be whisked away and become a rich man's wife. But Harry also has secrets in his past he'd rather not reveal, and the couple quickly find themselves at odds, shades of Du Maurier's Rebecca. Violet is a prime example of an unreliable narrator; Rindell crafts her as a liar from the start, but as the story moves forward, readers will be left wondering if Violet even knows what the truth is when it comes to her past. Fans of gothic historical fiction and historical romantic suspense will find much to enjoy here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)