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The Weird Sisters: A Romance
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262 pages, Hardcover
First published December 20, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 19, 2016
No, the title doesn't refer to a trio of Shakespearian witches, more's the pity.
It doesn't even refer to any type of sisters, nor even to anything human, but to a couple of towers on two very different residences, one a castle with a grisly past, one a manor house with a grisly present.
Henry Walter Grey, a popular and jovial banker, known affectionately as 'Wat' around the county and favoured for big things, gave the name to the two towers, and they are to play a telling role in his fate.
His bank collapses, he keeps it afloat by dipping into the fortune of a local aristocrat entrusted to him, then he takes advantage of circumstances to secretly murder his wife.
The only way he can see out of his reputation and finances financial is to marry the innocent young daughter of the nobleman he has embezzled. With her as his wife, there will never be a need to repay the debt.
This plot is shabbily developed after the implications of an interesting first scene with a blackmailer which Dowling never pursued, the author's occasional attempts to wax lyrical were hammily rhetorical, the dialogue like something from a cheap matinee.
For all that, I liked it.
The whole thing had a amateurish yet pleasing eccentricity and levity of tone. Of course you can't get away with uxoricide in a Victorian novel, but Dowling allows his protagonist a good run for his money.
The portrayal of a man becoming increasingly unhinged with guilt was as naff as everything else, but I don't think the writer had any pretensions to rival Shakespeare, above and beyond that title.
p.s. don't be put off by the number of pages, it's not an epic, there couldn't have been much more than about a third of the text you would find on a usual page.
It doesn't even refer to any type of sisters, nor even to anything human, but to a couple of towers on two very different residences, one a castle with a grisly past, one a manor house with a grisly present.
Henry Walter Grey, a popular and jovial banker, known affectionately as 'Wat' around the county and favoured for big things, gave the name to the two towers, and they are to play a telling role in his fate.
His bank collapses, he keeps it afloat by dipping into the fortune of a local aristocrat entrusted to him, then he takes advantage of circumstances to secretly murder his wife.
The only way he can see out of his reputation and finances financial is to marry the innocent young daughter of the nobleman he has embezzled. With her as his wife, there will never be a need to repay the debt.
This plot is shabbily developed after the implications of an interesting first scene with a blackmailer which Dowling never pursued, the author's occasional attempts to wax lyrical were hammily rhetorical, the dialogue like something from a cheap matinee.
For all that, I liked it.
The whole thing had a amateurish yet pleasing eccentricity and levity of tone. Of course you can't get away with uxoricide in a Victorian novel, but Dowling allows his protagonist a good run for his money.
The portrayal of a man becoming increasingly unhinged with guilt was as naff as everything else, but I don't think the writer had any pretensions to rival Shakespeare, above and beyond that title.
p.s. don't be put off by the number of pages, it's not an epic, there couldn't have been much more than about a third of the text you would find on a usual page.
January 8, 2013
What a strange book! I thought when I picked up this book (read it on my pda from Gutenberg actually) that it would be about sisters, perhaps strange ones that quite likely wanted to get married, or men wanted to marry them, but they were rich, or they were poor and the story would be about their lives, pretty typical for a pre-1900 novel.
This was not about sisters, it was about a man who goes to extreme lengths to protect his "name". Madness from the beginning until the end. But that doesn't mean it was bad, I liked that it kept you guessing though I wasn't prepared for how dark it was, it's not like Dostoevsky dark, but still certainly dark. I thought that it was well written, not a master piece, but it can be read without feeling like you are reading, that is to say it flows well.
The characters were well enough developed that you cared or didn't care about the ones that you should care or not care about. I'd recommend reading this if you want something like a clean psycho thriller as the main character loses his mind, with a bit of romance thrown in. It's not a bit scary, nor is it supposed to be, it's also not mushy, it's just an interesting, unique diversion, that I think is even believable.
This was not about sisters, it was about a man who goes to extreme lengths to protect his "name". Madness from the beginning until the end. But that doesn't mean it was bad, I liked that it kept you guessing though I wasn't prepared for how dark it was, it's not like Dostoevsky dark, but still certainly dark. I thought that it was well written, not a master piece, but it can be read without feeling like you are reading, that is to say it flows well.
The characters were well enough developed that you cared or didn't care about the ones that you should care or not care about. I'd recommend reading this if you want something like a clean psycho thriller as the main character loses his mind, with a bit of romance thrown in. It's not a bit scary, nor is it supposed to be, it's also not mushy, it's just an interesting, unique diversion, that I think is even believable.
January 4, 2013
It was a very good story although the writing style was a little amateurish. It all fell apart at the end, though. That was disappointing.
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August 3, 2016Accident! oops. Right book name, wrong author. Didn't read this one.....
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews