Oh man. This fucking book. This thing. Uh. It was supposed to be so awesome. How do you fuck this up? How? A gothic fairy tale set in antebellum Mississippi? Oh my god. This concept could have made for my favorite book of the year. But no. I just got this. 
 The most intense feeling this book inspired was disappointment. This should have been so awesome. 
 So this is based on a very short and vague fairy tale with the biggest Mary Sue ending ever. I read it before because I thought, oh, it's going to be this really rich tale that's going to add to the experience of reading this book. Nope. It's kind of boring actually. And short and stupid. No real moral. Just kinda weird. So it was based on what was already not a strong work. 
 A major problem in this book what the setting, because clearly the author could not decide which one she wanted. This book takes place in an English abbey in Mississippi run by a French tenant, with his Bostonian goddaughter/child bride. So you have the Frenchmen, the English architecture, and slavery. Oh man. This decision was so confused and convoluted, and you offer up potential source material that could have been amazing, yet the author un-wrote it out of the book. None of the characters are southern other than the slaves, who get little presence other than this huge abolitionist subplot that kinda has to be there to make our protagonist likeable. It doesn't even succeed at that though. We will get that that little bitch later. 
 The setting should have been consistent. Just make the bastard southern. It's not too much of a suspension of disbelief to write a cultured, charismatic, adventurous, handsome gentlemanly character who just happened to be southern (I know right? Shocker). It's not as though the south housed any kind of social hierarchy, chivalry code, local legends and bitchin' old mansions that would make this setting logical. No way. We gotta outsource that shit. Rebuild an English Abbey in Mississippi, brick by brick. We couldn't even manage one southern belle bride of de Cressac; they were all European except for Sophie-Sophia. 
 And so much of this book was description of the setting. Setting that had nothing to do with location. Except slaves. That was the only thing that made Mississippi relevant. Ugh. Why was this set in the south? The south played no role here. But chapter after chapter was dedicated to describing the house, the gowns, the furniture... and none of it fit the tone or setting. Italian frescoes everywhere. It wasn't charming or artistic, it was jarring. Stick to the look of the setting you choose. Hang some creepy portraits. Give it a big-ass wraparound porch. Make Bernard southern. I'm sorry, I wanted a charming southern gentleman and I got a very creepy Frenchman. 
 Speaking of creepy Frenchman, the fact Sophie did not high-tail it out of there within the first week speaks volumes of her intelligence. Oh my god, he stopped being redeemably charming immediately. A character like that needs to at least be tempting, you can't have him get that unbelievably awful that fast without something to reel you back in. I knew within the first hundred pages, even without being familiar with the source material, that he was a disgusting person. I stopped liking him nearly immediately after he started getting pushy. So yeah, he definitely spirals downward, but he sucked to begin with. And four wives? Seriously? Of course he murdered them! Why does this surprise anyone? 
 Sophie, or Sophia- the author was indecisive on this one- is a flat, boring, stupid teenage girl who does not get the gravity and danger of her situation. She's delusional in how she can change Bernard with her love (actually gag me) and plays up this sense of martyrdom. She had plenty of time to leave before it reached the point of no return. I could not sympathize with her, she was just too thickheaded and the author was trying so hard to make her be this strong heroine. No. absolutely not. 
 Her love interest is boring. Notice how I can't even remember his name? He's sweet, and his scenes (all four of them) did soften the absolute shit storm going on around Sophie-Sophia; but he is indeed boring. And I get it, his innocence and eternal goodness and noble heart is a much needed juxtaposition to de Cressac's rape-y behavior, I get it. You need someone who poses no sexual threat when you have de Cressac licking wine off of your cleavage. However... he's so, so flaccid. I know the author was going for not your typical love interest, and maybe he had something more to him, but he is present in about five scenes of this book, and very little of it is discussing his true feelings. 
 And her family. Her fucking family. They were never rich, but what they couldn't buy they made up for in love! I was gagging. Not because I hated this choice but Sophie-Sophia just beats you over the head with how happy and wonderful it was to be poor. Then her family shows up and you wonder; how on earth was she happy with these complete selfish assholes? 
 "Sophie, Harry owes a great deal of debt. Could you ask your guardian to cover his ass?" 
 "Actually Sophie, I owe twice that amount of money. Can you ask him again?" 
 "Sophie, do you think your guardian can set me up with some business connections? No, don't ask later, ask him now. Sophie. Ask him." 
 "Sophie, did you ask him yet?" 
 And Harry is a terrible, terrible person who deserves to suffer for his idiocy, but no, his little sister is responsible for covering his tracks. 
 Awful, awful people. And then her sister blatantly ignores the fact Sophie/Sophia is being ABUSED by this guy. Because he has money. So you could do a lot worse Sophie, suck it up bitch. Then Anne starts picking fights with him once she realizes his controlling behavior is dangerous, and her sister winds up in even more trouble for it. And they abandon her on the other side of the country, still asking for money over their shoulders as Bernard forces them out of the house, leaving her alone with this threat. 
 The only, only tension was caused by just how crazy de Cressac was. Because there were no holds barred there. You knew Sophie was safe, but everyone else? Doomed. And I liked that threat. That was the only thing that kept me interested. I had to force my way through this book. 
 This book is a failed idea. It is not numbingly awful, but there is little to compel or entice, flat characters, messy world-building, ghosts that appear in the third act for no reason or justification- suddenly there's just ghosts. And of course the setting is a nightmare of lost potential. 
 Fun fact, I pictured Christoph Waltz as de Cressac (shut up I know I have a serious problem). I could not shake that image so then I had a German Frenchman stuck in my head which further confused everything. I blame Django Unchained for the head-canon of misplaced German in the south. I cared so little about the character I had to amuse myself somehow.