Welsh historical gothic is the best way to describe this novel, which is a feast for the senses. THE SHADOW KEY is set in 1783, a time of change in Wales. Dr Henry Talbot takes a job as a general physician in a small mining village where Welsh is spoken, at the behest of the landowner. Lord Julian Tresilian is English – resented by some – and he’s keen to extract all he can from the copper mines.
Henry had previously worked at Guy’s Hospital, in London, so this is a huge contrast. He will be required to care for the Tresilian family, who live in Grand Plas Helyg. Henry was supposed to move into their gatehouse but someone has damaged the place, so he temporarily accepts a bedroom in the big house. And that’s when the local characters get introduced, none of them exactly what you’d expect.
Lord Julian’s cousin Lynette dresses in shirts and breeches, and doesn’t intend marriage. Her afflicted mother Gwen Tresilian seems to be away with the fairies and seldom leaves her room. The butler Powell disapproves of everything. Mrs. Evans the Welsh housekeeper was related to the former doctor, who died suddenly. Maybe it’s because Henry helped the Bow Street Runners in London a few times, that he starts to feel suspicious. The one local who doesn’t act surly at having an English authority figure imposed on the village is Hedgewitch Rowena Carew.
The only people outside the family Henry can really speak with are pastor Reverend Dee and, in the next town, Dr. Beddoe, a crusty soul who clearly wishes he had a better position. Lord Julian is away some of the time, so it’s Henry, Lynette, the staff and a lurcher dog Merlin. Henry realises he’d better learn to speak some Welsh. The slate quarry and copper mines emit a smell of sulphur which taints the water, and constant dampness gives rise to thick foliage everywhere, slippery stones, and running streams. Mist, dark and isolation start to produce a gloomy, foreboding feel, and Henry wonders if something sinister is afoot.
The author Susan Stokes-Chapman is English and studied creative writing in Wales, and researched the history of this period for her book. The quirk I dislike is that many times, during dialogue, she inserts the words: A beat. Then recommences the line. This is a modern term, which completely throws me out of the story and onto the page, and besides, it just looks odd and makes me think she’s writing for an audiobook. Other than that, THE SHADOW KEY is a gloomily creepy work, with the brightness of Henry’s calling as a doctor, and his determination to learn Welsh and aid his patients, even the mysteriously ill Gwen. I did spot several potential motives for one crime or another, which didn’t seem to occur to him, but he hadn’t read mysteries and had youthful expectations of proper behaviour. Readers can pick up some Welsh vocabulary and enjoy the countryside, on horseback or on foot.
On an isolated estate in late-eighteenth-century rural Wales, a young English doctor uncovers dangerous secrets that may threaten his own life in this spellbinding Gothic tale from the bestselling author of Pandora.
Dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital, Dr. Henry Talbot has little choice but to accept a mysterious offer of employment as a private physician from an inscrutable lord in rural Wales, Lord Julian. Arriving at Plas Helyg, the isolated estate, Henry can’t speak the language and finds himself treated with hostile suspicion by superstitious villagers, whose beliefs in myths and magic he’s inclined to dismiss. But when he discovers that his predecessor died under peculiar, inexplicable circumstances, his determination to uncover the truth leads him down a path fraught with danger—made all the more perilous by his headstrong, reluctant ally Linette, Lord Julian’s cousin.
Linette has lived a lonely life as Plas Helyg’s unconventional mistress: Julian treats her with disdain, her father is long dead, and her mother, long plagued by strange spells and believed by everyone around her to be deeply unwell, spends most of her time locked away in her rooms. Fiercely self-reliant, Linette refuses to wear women’s clothes, has no interest in marriage, and takes an interest in the welfare of the men working in Lord Julian’s mines, against his wishes.
Linette has always suspected something is not quite right in the village, but it is only through Henry's dogged investigations that the dark truth about those closest to her will come to light—a truth that will bind hers and Henry's destinies together forever in ways neither thought possible.
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