STONEBRIDGE

A young woman is seduced into a life of romance, cruelty, and mystery when summoned to her family’s haunted manor in Griffin’s supernatural novel.

Still mourning the death of her mother, Pamela, Rynna Dalton arrives at her great-grandmother Edwina Demeray’s Stonebridge manor in Brenford County, Virginia. Though it’s the late 1950s, the mansion is a Georgian house out of time, complete with housemaids in caps and aprons. Her scholarly and gallows-humored cousin, Ted, confined to a wheelchair by severe arthritis, is the only other occupant of Stonebridge…or is he? The spirit of Rosalind, a cousin raised as Pamela’s sister, seems to follow her around the estate, granting her strange visions and coaxing haunting notes from the manor’s piano in the middle of the night (“She waited through a silent, breathless pause and then… Not the shimmering note of previous nights, but a harsh, clashing chord, deep and frightening”). Equally taken with her is Rosalind’s son, Jason—Rynna’s second cousin and a handsome, single lawyer whose flattering overtures enchant Stonebridge’s new resident. The two quickly marry. Ted, whose chiding repartee with Rynna has grown into an unexpected friendship (and something deeper and unspoken), is vocally and passionately opposed to their union. The novel tackles domestic violence in a way that never lingers on, revels in, or exploits the somber subject matter. Just as impressive is the book’s depiction of Ted, a fully realized character whose disability is neither his lone distinguishing trait nor a tool for Rynna’s own growth. The story isn’t afraid to be cutting toward its characters or their entanglements in a fun, cathartic way, and the wit of Rynna and Ted’s banter lends moments of lightness to the dark narrative. The supernatural elements are relatively low-key until the novel’s end, where each spooky note builds to an exciting crescendo that recalls a tradition of gothic storytelling usually reserved for the endings of Hammer horror films.

A heady blend of the serious and the supernatural, with a dark humor that uncannily undercuts neither.