Full review can be found here. 
 This idea held a lot of potential and for the most part the story lived up to my expectations. I liked the idea behind it all: it is fairly quickly implied that dark magic was used to imprison the British lord and what ensues is the attempt to unravel the secrets behind the ritual that tore Lord Denbury's soul from his body. The end result of this was a little disappointing as I was expecting some complicated riddle, all things considered, but after the reveal it just felt like the characters had spent the whole book overlooking clues that had been staring them in the face. 
 Natalie was an interesting protagonist. I liked that she was mute, giving her an unusual perspective of life, but that she could hear - something all too often forgotten by those around her to comedic effect when Natalie takes things into her own hands to remind them of the fact. At the start of the story she's in an asylum for the blind, deaf and dumb but soon returns home to her father. He happens to be a curator at a museum and when Natalie reads of the lifelike portrait of the recently deceased Lord Denbury coming to Manhattan, she becomes convinced that they need to procure it for the museum. 
 Her obsession with just looking at the portrait was a little disconcerting, though I suppose she wasn't the only young woman in the story to show such tendencies. The only reason ever offered for this is that the man in the portrait happens to be very good looking. What would have happened had he been just average or suffered from some disfiguring scar? 
 It soon transpires that the painting looks so lifelike because there is a very much alive Lord Denbury stuck inside the painting. It also transpires that Natalie is the only one able to able to move through the portal from our world to the magical prison - both through physically touching the portrait and subconsciously in her dreams. The reader receives no explanation as to why this is the case beyond the idea that Natalie has a particular "aura" about her, opposite colours to those of the evil people who forced poor Lord Denbury into the painting. I suppose that if she wasn't able to move between the two realities then there wouldn't be much of a story but I felt like I, as the reader, was being asked to suspend my disbelief a bit too much. 
 I admit that I wanted more to it than what I was offered. Obviously, I can accept outlandish claims in fiction (such as a rock lodging itself in some woman's hand - The Native Star by M.K. Hobson), so I have no doubts that with a little more effort on the author's behalf, I could have accepted this more readily as well. 
 The villain's motives were never really explored either. We don't know why Denbury was chosen or why they (both the good Denbury in the portrait and the evil Denbury clone on the outside) travelled to the other side of the Atlantic (beyond, perhaps, anonymity but then the painting receives so much attention that that motive is rendered moot) or even what exactly the evil Denbury wants - beyond debauchery. 
 A large number of things are not addressed in this book and while I hope that they will be explored in future instalments, I would have preferred at least some insight in this book. 
 Beyond this, I like the characters introduced. Mrs Northe in particular is interesting, if bordering on a little too perfect. I wish Maggie had been used more - at one point I thought she might get a bigger, if terminal, role, but, like answers, she seems to have been shunned for a later book. 
 The focus of this book was on getting Denbury out of the cursed painting as well as the budding attraction between Natalie and Denbury. This worked quite well, though Natalie was infatuated before she'd even discovered the portal and Denbury seemed to choose her simply because she was the only human contact he got. It was sweet, despite teetering on the verge of questionable a couple of times. 
 Finally, I really don't understand why this book is Pride and Prejudice meets Dorian Grey. Dorian Grey sure, it's easy to see the parallels there, but I didn't see any parallels with Pride and Prejudice.