the owl and the olive tree

Immortal, by Gillain Shields

When Evie's grandmother becomes ill, Evie has to go to live and study in Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies, a boarding school for upper-class young ladies. Except Evie isn't from a wealthy family: she's a charity scholarship student. Her only allies are her friend Sarah, fellow scholarship student (and possibly-crazy girl) Helen... and Sebastian, the mysterious boy she meets by night. But something dreadful is going on at Wyldcliffe, something that ties together the mysterious death of the school's founder with the more recent drowning of a student.

At first I was kind of baffled by this book, because I was reading it as a YA supernatural romance. Which it is. It wasn't until I realized that it was also a gothic that it started to come together for me. There's a big creepy building with an Ominious History! A mysterious death of a young woman—a drowning in the lake—right before Evie arrives! Strange, half-seen figures and whispered mysteries! Doomful portents by a crazy woman! Attempts on Our Heroine's life by people jealous of her! There's even a gypsy prophecy, seriously. And, of course, Sebastian, who we meet when he almost runs Evie over with his giant black horse, no joke. In that sense it's highly entertaining, and it was fun to play spot-the-gothic-trope.

The problem was that it either needed to be a bit less melodramatic, or quite a lot more. Shields seemed to be trying to walk the line between a semi-realistic modern fantasy and an over the top brooding gothic romance, but the balance didn't... quite work for me. And the tone felt a little off. There's a bit at the beginning where Evie arrives at the school and sees the sign over the door: WYLDCLIFFE ABBEY SCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES, but the paint has peeled off, revealing an ominous message. Unfortunately, the ominous message is: WYLDCLIFFE BE COOL OR YOU DIE, which... just felt off for a gothic romance, I dunno.

The characters are a mix. I liked Evie early on, when she was sensible and irritated at the turn her life had taken, and was performing small rebellions to get away from the other students, who tormented her. But she bought into the Romance and Mystery a bit too quickly for me; I was hoping for her to stay more levelheaded. On that note, I really did like her friend Sarah, who avoided the mean girls by planting a garden and riding her horses and being pretty reliably clearheaded... except for the part where her great-great-great grandmother was Romany and left her a bit of second sight. (This should also stand as a warning for those for whom that would be a deal-breaker. It's brief and it's touched on only lightly, but it is there.) But that was so briefly touched on that I just internalized her as "Sarah with the garden and the horses" and liked her quite a bit. The parts where Sarah and Evie were trying to figure out the mysteries of Wyldcliffe Hall were my favorite bits, and I enjoyed them enough to make the read overall very pleasant.

That said... Sebastian. He's a gothic hero, which means he swans around by moonlight, rides a giant black horse (although it's a mare, which is refreshing!), wears archaic clothing, is pale and tormented-looking, and makes vague, mysterious statements a lot. Unfortunately, also sort of a genre staple, he's arrogant and controlling, and he never really gets called on it. Sigh. Again, I think if the book was just a liiiiiiitle bit more melodramatic, I would have found that awesome; as it was, it was just realistic enough that I found him irritating and wanted Evie to hook up with Sarah.

The reason Sebastian makes me frustrated enough to pull my hair out, under the spoiler cut.

( Spoilers meet by the lake of drowning at the midnight hour )

Overall, an enjoyable enough book (apart from the hair-pulling frustrating of Sebastian), but nothing I'd recommend people run out and find.