Gentle from the Night isn't a blast from the past, it is an homage to the gothic style. Like most traditional gothics, the story is set in Victorian England, and tells the tale of a young woman. After her father's death, Alexandra is forced to work in a lonely, haunted castle far removed from the hustle and bustle of her life in London. The castle is haunted by the ghost of Ursula Pole, the former governess of the ominous and mysterious master of Cairncross Castle, Lord Newell. Miss Pole, an evil and abusive woman, disappeared one night almost 20 years prior to Alexandra's arrival, and no one knows what became of her. Meagan McKinney introduces several modern elements to this traditional tale of a young woman adrift in a haunted castle, including the heroine's own unusual identity as a young Jew; Alexandra faces estrangement whether she is in an old castle or in 19th-century London. Haunting, evocative, and beautifully written, Gentle from the Night is a tribute to the genre.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Left penniless after her father's death, Alexandra Benjamin strikes an unusual bargain with John Damien Newell, the darkly seductive master of Cairncross Castle. Hired to teach his troubled younger brother, Samuel, to speak, she soon discovers the castle harbors many terrible secrets. Secrets that lead Alexandra through a labyrinth of twisted lies and ancient mysteries, to where the answers lie waiting in the innermost chambers of the heart.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The bleakness of the Yorkshire moors provides an appropriate backdrop for this unconventional Victorian romance by veteran McKinney (A Man to Slay Dragons). Sexually abused as a young boy by his governess, Miss Ursula Pole, the handsome Lord Damien Newell has learned to associate sex with violence. Now, years after his trauma and Miss Pole's mysterious, sudden disappearance, Newell has returned to his family's Cairncross Castle in York, and to his younger brother Sam, who was struck mute when Miss Pole vanished. Newell writes to the esteemed Dr. Horace Benjamin, inviting him to York to treat Sam, unaware that Dr. Benjamin is dead. The doctor's daughter, Alexandra, responds to Newell's missive, offering to treat Sam herself, ambiguously signing her letter "Alex." Expecting Dr. Benjamin's son, Newell is furious when the pretty young lady arrives. He quickly becomes obsessed with Alexandra's virtue, and she with his barely suppressed potential for cruelty and violence. While Alexandra attempts to coax Sam into speaking, the malevolent ghost of Miss Pole harasses her, pushing her down stairs, hiding her belongings and, eventually, painting a Star of David on her mirror. Terrified, Alexandra perseveres. She knows that locked in Sam's unspeaking, childish mind is the answer to what happened to Miss Pole. His revelation provokes the climactic twist that puts the poltergeist in her place eternally. In this gothic morality tale, Damien's victory over his violent sexual abuse is a counterpoint to Alexandra's rebellion against anti-Semitism. In the end, what is truly haunting about this novel is not the mischief of the undead Miss Pole but the questions McKinney raises about the seductive nature of evil. (Feb.)

Kirkus Reviews

McKinney (A Man to Slay Dragons, 1995, etc.) writes an old-fashioned gothic to which she adds a little S&M.

On the bleak and misty Yorkshire moors lies the ancestral home of the Newells, Cairncross Castle, looking "like a gargoyle crouched by the sea." It is here that Alexandra Benjamin comes to help and work with a 30-year-old man with the mind of a child. She is the daughter of a Jewish doctor (an "infidel") who specialized in audiology and taught Alex everything he knew. After his death, Alex, pretending to be a man, accepts a commission from John Damien Newell to teach his brother Sam to speak again. Sam has apparently been struck dumb by something he saw one day in the Roman catacombs that underlie the castle, and both boys were severely traumatized by their childhood governess—the evil, flame-haired Ursula Pole, whose ghost haunts the castle and walks the moors. Lord Newell, when he discovers that Alex Benjamin is really a woman, decides to let her stay on in the role of governess. He's attracted by her self-assurance, her goodness and optimism. Since Ursula's death, Newell has been dominated by the dark side of his personality, never letting himself be vulnerable to the love of a good woman; instead, he spends his time with his London mistress, to whom he administers whippings (in Wapping). Fearing that he'll be persuaded to change his nasty habits, Newell tries to seduce Alex to his evil, ungentle ways. Alex takes a very long time figuring out that the poor tormented baron didn't kill Ursula, who sexually assaulted him when he was a boy.

Tedium relieved only by unintentionally humorous prose ("But once the dam broke into madness, there was no bucket large enough to put the water back"), in a work often bordering on camp.