Review: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood
4 STARS + ARC || Jane Eyre retelling? Yes, please. All the yes. All the gimmeeeeee…
Within These Wicked Walls is an impressively rendered Jane Eyre re-telling that stands entirely on its own. The fantasy, horror, romance, and family redemptive elements lace together beautifully. From the first chapter to the epilogue I was kept entranced by the story.
The setting is eerie and immersive in its scope. From the opening pages, I could feel the sand gritting against Andromeda, as she described her familiarity with the dusts of the land. The castle itself is wonderfully described, as is her entrance into its icy depths. With the odd servants, weird rules, and ice cold temperature of her new home, I felt the unease from the moment she stepped foot into that dastardly castle.
Andromeda is a debtera, in other terms an exorcist, trained by her adoptive father figure, to break curses and exorcise places from the Evil Eye. When she’s kicked out of her home and forced to make her own way she finds herself in the employ of a Mr. Rochester. Nothing is what it seems though as she digs further into the home and the curse itself, only to be lead back to her home and the man who raised her.
This was a solid stand-alone novel. Immersive in it’s horror and setting, intriguing with it’s fantasy elements, romantic with it’s main characters, while also having a heartbeat resting in the palms of a father/daughter relationship that left me with an ache upon reading the final chapter.
The romance felt a bit lacking in some spots, just a bit too much insta-love, however that being said, it still works quite well. Andromeda and Magnus have a chemistry that is disarmingly enchanting and humorous. I highlighted so many of their conversations because there was just so much awesomeness between the two of them.
Overall, I highly recommend this tightly written fantasy, horror, and romance. Andromeda is a wonderful character to spend time with as she navigates the machinations of her heart and her head, all while falling in love, and exorcising a psychotic house.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
What the heart desires, the house destroys…
Andromeda is a debtera—an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. When a handsome young heir named Magnus Rochester reaches out to hire her, Andromeda quickly realizes this is a job like no other, with horrifying manifestations at every turn, and that Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the most likely outcome if she stays, but leaving Magnus to live out his curse alone isn’t an option. Evil may roam the castle’s halls, but so does a burning desire.
Kiersten White meets Tomi Adeyemi in this Ethiopian-inspired debut fantasy retelling of Jane Eyre.
