One of the interesting things about these mid-century gothic romances is the surprising amount of time it takes to read a book that is so slender. This book was originally published in 1953 under the title "The Lamb to the Slaughter." This is actually a bit earlier than most of the gothics I read, which are generally from the 1960's.

In The Brooding Lake, Eden, who was born in New Zealand, returns to New Zealand for her story. Alice, the heroine, has been summoned to a tiny community near the small town New Zealand town of Hokitika by her friend Camilla, where she is meant to be a teacher for the small school there.

By the time Alice arrives, however, Camilla is no where to be found. Alice installs herself in the rundown cottage in the woods where Camilla has been living, finding no one there but a (very hungry) cat and a magpie who yells random concerning things like "lend it to me" and "get out." Alice finds a letter from Camilla joyously informing her that she is getting married.

Upon arrival, three men present themselves as possible suitors for our fair Alice: Dalton, the enigmatic, wealthy man who lives in a beautiful home with his friendly sister, Katherine, Dundas, and older widower who lives in a small house with his daughter Margaretta, and Felix Dodson, who is an old flame of Alice's who just happens to be a bus driver in the area.

As the book proceeds, things get weird as they do in gothic romances. On an exceptionally dark and stormy night, Alice is trapped in Dalton & Katherine's home when someone

punctures the tires so Dalton can't drive her home. One of the servants, Tottie, whispers to Alice that she should lock her door. Alice fails to heed the advice and someone comes into her room at night, ties her hair to the bed post, and whispers creepy stuff like "Camilla is here" as she flees in terror into the night. 

The relationship with Dundas takes a turn as well, when Alice is clonked on the head with a branch during the storm and ends up in his home with Margaretta in charge of nursing her back to health. Dundas declares his love for Alice with a disturbing focus on her petite size - the whole thing was weird as all get out, and at one point had me convinced that Eden was going to make Dundas a cross-dresser, which would have been shocking indeed to the 1953 mind. Alas, that was not what was going on.

Anyway, the book comes to an emotional climax in a boat on the brooding lake, with a rather Ripley-esque few moments that Alice must handle. As is also the tradition with gothic romance, the story wraps up very quickly, in a few pages, with one of the suitors proving his love by saving the heroine, one of the suitors being exposed as a murderer, and one of the suitors leaving town. 

Page 84

Things just got super-creepy with Dalton and Katherine. Classic dark and stormy night, with disembodied voices whispering in the dark.

Page 63:

Still no brooding lake. However, the fair Camilla has been keeping at least four men dancing attendance on her. Somehow, I suspect that she has not eloped. I fear she has come to a bad end, and that Alice's digging around will not go well. 

I did start this, although I didn't get very far into it! I ended up doing a lot of projects around the house over the weekend, in addition to the book sell-back/sorting project that I have already mentioned. I also cleaned out our coat closet of decades worth of old coats, mismatched gloves and ratty baseball caps, and I decuttered our pantry shelves of everything that doesn't belong in a pantry/laundry room.

In the middle of that bustling activity, I mostly just wanted to watch movies. In honor of fall, I settled to complete the lovely annual autumnal Harry Potter rewatch, and watched the second half of Order of the Phoenix, Half Blood Prince and both Part I and Part II of The Deathly Hallows. I also made a bubbling pot of delicious turkey and bean chili and did the laundry. All in all, it was a lovely, busy, productive yet still relaxing weekend.

The first two chapters of The Brooding Lake are setting it up quite nicely. Our main character, Alice, has arrived for a visit with her friend, Camilla. In a bit of a confusing non-sequitur, it turns out that her bus driver is Felix, a lost love. It's unclear in the first few sentences if Alice recognized him when she boarded the bus or not, so that whole thing was sort of confusing. Our location is a bit obscure - it seems to be somewhere on the west coast of New Zealand, with reference to a glacier.

Above is Lake Matheson, which is apparently in the general area. It could be convincingly broody at dusk, possibly with some fog trailing about dramatically.

We haven't yet gotten to the brooding lake, however, Camilla is no where to be found. Just her cat and her parrot, randomly screaming "Get Out" are in the home... 

Although The White Fog had some late speed, this one ended up hanging on to win!

This hilariously bad book gets two stars only because I was too curious about the ending to DNF it. Written in 1967, it is terribly dated in its gender roles and sexual attitudes. It takes the form of a woman’s recollection of terrible events that befell her a few years earlier when she met a rich, handsome, romantic stranger and was so desperate to avoid being a pathetic old maid at the age of 26 that she demanded he marry her rather than just engaging in a love affair. After all, she was already damaged goods from an earlier love affair where (gasp) her lover had refused to marry her after stringing her along. From all her dark hints, I expected that she’d been imprisoned and tortured in the dungeons. It turned out, however, that  

Then, to make sure you understand what a villain he really is, it turns out that he 

But not to worry, she finds hope of happiness in the end, when 

This book serves as a good moral lesson on the dangers of impulsive commitments, not because of the heroine’s sufferings, but because I picked it up on impulse from my library’s donation gimmie shelves. And oh boy, did I pay for it.

I read this book for Task the Second: The Silent Nights (Read a book set in one of the Nordic countries, where winter nights are long!) in the Twelve Tasks of the Festive Season challenge. Although it takes place across several countries, the bulk of the action is in Denmark, and in Otto’s home manor house castle on the island of Samsø, and is in the spring, where apparently, the days are very long instead of the long winter nights.