I had such high hopes for this book. It was one that I sincerely wanted to read even before I entered the First Reads giveaway, and when I found out I'd actually won it, I was overjoyed! Once I settled down to read it, I really enjoyed the first few chapters, and I had good feelings about where the book was going. But at some point it went astray, and I ended up not liking it as much as I'd hoped. 
 There are two reasons why I think that happened. First, Clark's descriptions of events are sometimes imprecise, and I found myself having to read certain passages over and over trying to figure out what was happening. This kind of problem isn't that unusual in a beginning writer, so I don't blame her as much as I do the editors, who could have given this book another once-over before publishing it. Second, the family secrets that Mercy Rathbone uncovers in her travels start out pretty weird and end up completely preposterous. I've always been a fan of books in the Gothic mode, but I feel Clark is pushing the Gothic as far as it can possibly go in this book, and any genre pushed too far turns into farce or parody. Clark comes perilously close to that point here, but thankfully manages not to tip over the line. Still, it was hard to believe that many strange things could happen to any one family over 100 years, and after a while I became weary of reading about them. 
 Despite all the problems, there are some fine passages in this book. I would be very interested to read Clark's second novel, which hopefully will avoid some of the pitfalls of this one.