Winterscape by Anastasia Cleaver

 

Screaming, crying, throwing up. WINTERSCAPE is a gothic romance written by one of my favorite authors, Natasha Peters (although Anastasia Cleaver is her gothic-specific pseudonym). I don't think I've given a single one of her books less than five stars. Whether she's writing first person or third person, she is a TALENT. Her literary references and attention to detail are just fantastic, and nobody does cruel, flawed, and seductive heroes the way she does. Like, no one.

Helena is the daughter of a piano musician who has spent most of her life poor, traveling from gig to gig with her father. Her father was two steps removed from Chopin, but the two of them are the literal definition of starving artists. When she sees an ad for a piano teacher after her father's untimely death, she answers it. But the family she's working for is strange. They are the Vallelongas family, and the patriarch, Andreas Vallelonga is a manic trickster cast in the mold of Edward Rochester whose once-beautiful wife is now haggard and dying, and he himself was once a piano master who destroyed his hands while drunk by cutting them on broken glass.

Her job is to tutor Andreas's son, Michele, who has a hump and a limp, and has been treated like shit by both his parents. She was actually hired by his uncle Daniele, and has quite the nasty surprise when Andreas intrudes on one of their lessons and says, "If I can't play piano, NO ONE CAN!" But Helena is unfazed and dresses him down, which he finds intriguing and amusing enough to let her stay. What results is a family drama of the finest order, with drunken aunts, crazy religious aunts, player uncles, scheming uncles, and an evil patriarch and matriarch who are used to having everyone dance to their own tune. Everyone is playing along because the family inheritance is on the line, but when someone dies unexpectedly and poison is suspected, suddenly, Helena finds herself in the line of fire...

The writing in this book was amazing. There's a great line where Andreas is described as a Lucifer encased in his own frozen tears. And Helena does feel very Jane Eyre-sque, especially with her no-nonsense demeanor and the fact that she feels a little too good for the manbaby love interest who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way and parades one of his old flames in front of her to make her jealous. Interestingly, there's a bit of a taboo element as well because

***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER***

Andreas's wife was Helena's mother, so when they get together at the end, she's kind of getting together with her stepfather. Very demure, very mindful, very cutesy. I just read another gothic romance recently where the girl ended up with her stepbrother, so who knew that the 70s gothics lines liked to get so down and dirty? Dark romance is quaking in its boots.

4.5 out of 5 stars