Lily of the Tower

by Elizabeth Hart

The country house has a secret…

Washed up by a storm at the gates of the local estate, young Agnes Headey has a first impression of brooding silence and faded elegance. When she learns that Master Netherfield’s sister is not dead, as all had presumed, she undertakes secret visits to the gentle but troubled woman. Soon Agnes would rather travel the miles between home and Netherfield than countenance the suit by the ardent James Thornton.

Lily Netherfield accepts her imprisonment, for her own good. Her sickness has caused enough grief and loss in her family. Just as she hopes perhaps she has grown out of her illness, the sound of light laughter, a kind word and a sweet smile brings it all back, and this time Lily does not want to be cured.
With social convention pressuring Agnes to marry for the security of her own future, only unwanted journeys lie ahead, and none of the roads lead to where her heart has finally found a home.

In this richly detailed story of Victorian and Regency England, debut author Elizabeth Hart asks the tantalizing question: What if Jane Eyre had lost her heart not to Rochester, but to the woman in the tower?

Genres: LGBT, Historical Fiction, Romance, Lesbian, Historical, Regency Romance, Fiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Liralen]

Augh. Typos. Historical inaccuracies. Unexplained events. Etc., etc.

It's necessary, sometimes, to rate on a sliding scale: compared to mainstream books, this would be perhaps a two-star book.* Lesbian romance is harder to come by, though, and publishers of the genre tend to be smaller and have fewer resources to spend on things like editing.

I was attracted, I think, by the tagline: What if Jane Eyre had lost her heart not to Rochester, but to the woman in the tower? But the tagline disappointed; this was no Jane Eyre. The characters are insufficiently rounded out (and, especially with Agnes, often quite irritating) and the plot is a stretch at best. I do expect that this is a book that would clean up well with some better editing, but it just didn't cut it.


*ETA: Having located many, many more books in the two-ish years since I wrote this, I'm going back to my original impulse.

[Alice]

For as long as I spent trying to track this book down, I really wanted to love it but it was a typical "Bella Books" debut novel. Nothing special about the writing style or the characters. Actually, I wasn't a huge fan of Agnes. While I love a good busybody, she marched around a house that wasn't hers and made all kinds of demands without thinking it through... and everyone just crumbled to her whims. The romance between her and Lily was superficial. It wasn't there. Agnes suddenly decided, out of the blue, that she loved Lily and repeatedly forced herself on Lily. But deep down Lily loved Agnes too, of course.

While I know he wasn't the focal point, I wanted more information about Agnes's fiance. The whole time I kept expecting him to come out as a villain because, despite being told he's a great guy, we never had a chance to see that. There were a few times we could have seen some development when they went on their little day trips, but it boiled down to, "They went to town and spent the day together and it was nice." Honestly, while I usually don't feel sorry for the men in these novels, I felt bad for the way Agnes just brushed everything off and ditched him. Like, be a woman about leaving your husband; don't leave a letter that's essentially two short lines.

Anyway, if you're interested in a book about a woman trying to drown her miseries in laudanum, enduring a marriage bed and husband she doesn't love, having a traumatic miscarriage and basically forgetting it ever happened by the next page, then here's your book. And yes, Agnes and Lily end up together... but Bury Your Gays still applies.

[Waca]

Well. I regret not having read the reviews more carefully. I could have spared myself the disappointment.

The worst part is, I actually loved the first half of the book and read the first 50% in one go! I had read the free preview, absolutely fell in love with it, and bought the book. I paused my reading around the time where our MC, Agnes, realizes she is in love with our other MC, Lily. When I picked the book up again, it suddenly went all downhill. Everything went wrong.

Agnes started to force herself on Lily repeatedly. She just could not take her no, and would whine endlessly and sometimes even be downright cruel each time Lily would reject her. Until now I had been really empathizing with Agnes and I had been happily following her thoughts and cheering her on. I loved all the parts where she had to gather her courage to help Lily, and even when she started to look for answers that Lily had not been willing to tell her, it still had been interesting and understandable (as it came from the desire to help her). But from the moment Agnes decided that Lily should want her back, she became a terrible character to read about. I could not empathize with her and I was bored to tears when the book started to focus SO MUCH on her relationship with her fiancé. I wanted to read that book for the lesbian romance. Instead I got pages and pages of Agnes bearing a very painful first time with her fiancé and of her adjusting to a life of satisfying his daily sexual needs. Boring and disgusting.

I don't want to spoil much of the plot, but I think some should be warned that miscarriage was used as an excuse by the author so one of their characters could conveniently overcome their addiction to laudanum. And then the trauma from the miscarriage itself is never discussed again, nor is the addiction to laudanum. Also I was uncomfortable with the voyeurism here. There are plenty of ways queer people could get outed, but the author chose to repeatedly have them be caught when having sex. Why?

I have seen others criticize the writing style and say that it did not fit the time period. I actually really liked the writing, but English is my second language and I never got to study this time period. The books I read - Jane Eyre for instance - I read in my mother tongue, so I cannot judge. I personally liked the writing style. My main beef really is with the plot.

By the time I was at 75% of the book, it had become a chore to read this, and I hated the ending. What a waste of good characters and of a promising starting idea! Do not let the summary fool you - this is nothing like Jane Eyre.

About the characters themselves, as I already said, Agnes was great during the first half, and then she became insufferable. We also never got her full backstory about her and her mom. As for Lily, the other MC? She's not a MC, she's merely the love interest. The best part about her is the prologue. In the rest of the book, she has no substance. She's barely a character at all.
The supporting characters were great and would have deserved more role, except of course for Agnes' fiancé that I could not care any less about. I had guessed what the deal was with Brandon from the moment I saw him, and I really wish we could have had more about him. I also hated his backstory.
Lily's brother was the biggest waste. He was so interesting, but the author just pushed him aside, kept him in the same role, and then decided for the worst possible ending for him. I'm still seething about it.

The plot would have been so much better if it had focused on the "Tower" situation, but instead, once Agnes was done investigating, all we got was her whining and predatory behavior. The relationship between her and Lily had a good start, but then it stagnated and I could not see any love blooming between them. I wish the book had focused more on Lily's recovery, and by recovery I don't just mean her mental health, I also mean her relationship with the other members of her house, and especially her brother. I think the prologue (which I know some people thought was excessively dramatic, but that I personally had been hooked by it), is maybe what came closer to the Jane Eyre feel that the summary was promising us. Agnes' arrival in Lily's house also has that feel. I think that had Agnes not been a lady, but instead a new working staff member that lived in the house, the way Jane Eyre did in Rochester's, then Lily and the other members of her house would have gotten a better chance to shine, as would have the romantic relationship between Agnes and Lily. Instead, we barely get to know them and we get to read about Agnes on her own for a long boring while. Even the 'action' of the ending bored me. It felt too much of a repeat of the prologue, but without all the tension, and by that time I disliked Agnes so much that I just stopped caring about the ending at all.

I don't know how to wrap this. I tried to stay vague enough so as to avoid spoilers. I don't recommend that book. Also I feel I should warn you that the bury your gays trope still applies in this book, only not from our two MCs.

[Bookgypsy]

This was a very sweet, charming and tragic story, even though it did have a happy ending. It definitely had a vintage feel to it; the way it was told was an incredible nod to Jane Erye-style stories.

[Dide]

Sweet and often times emotionally tiring .... enjoyed it all the same.

[Casey]

DNF at 74%

I couldn't finish this, the central relationship seemed so unhealthy to me with Agnes continually pushing herself on an unwilling Lily. And the "Jane Eyre" reference in the premise was incorrect, this book doesn't come off as Jane and Bertha falling in love at all. Just... yeah no thanks

[Kate Long]

Stars: 3 Stars
Format: Digital
Series: Stand Alone
Steam Level: Fade to Black

CW: imprisonment, infidelity, death, violence, death of a baby, suicide

I read this for the 2026 A to Z Book Challenge for the letter L.

I had originally read this in 2013 and honestly couldn’t remember much about it other than enjoying it. I’m doing a lot of rereading and retellings this year so I pulled this out again.

Quick Thoughts:
- This is a retelling of Jane Eyre
- There is a bit of head hopping in this book which surprised me. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been a little clearer in the beginning there would be
- The prologue is really good but the story is kinda boring until Agnes meets Lily
- There are a few random Lily chapters in the book, which threw me at first but were nice to get her POV since 90% of the book is Agnes
- Loved that most of the characters weren’t fully good or bad. Just a lot shades of gray
- I really liked the ending and how things wrapped up
- I took away one star because the overall pacing of the book is uneven and it pulled me from the story in spots. I took away another star because I felt that Agnes went from persistent into incredibly pushy territory which irked me a whole bunch

Overall I enjoyed this book even with the issues I had with it. The story was fun and the characters evolved. It isn’t a book I would recommend first for a sapphic retelling but it’s a solidly fun book worth picking up if you need a new retelling to read.

[Sally]

At some points this could have managed three stars but overall, no. It was just... too much! The prologue was ridiculous, shoving SO much drama into so few pages. Would have been better to just begin with chapter one and let all the rest come out slowly in flash-backs or conversations, rather than bombarding us with all this melodrama right off the bat. And then the story... it was interesting enough, but just not executed that well. Agnes did not come across as a curious, sympathetic character for whom we are rooting - she came across as a nosy and interfering busy-body! Seriously! I know it was meant to appear that she was investigating this secret and so cleverly putting everything together, but it felt way more like she was sticking her nose in where it was not wanted. Ugh. For that reason I was not as invested in and did not totally buy the romance. Lily at least became more interesting over time.

Also, what the hell kind of name is Zona? And is it just me or does the idea of people in 19th century Britain saying "kilometres" just seem really wrong? It also seemed as though the author was trying to write British but not really sure how to do it - some words would be spelled the British way, but then some the American way, and it came across as quite jarring to have that discrepancy throughout.

[Brian Smith]

In Lily of the Tower, the author follows a prologue of self-recognition and passion with an engrossing tale of gothic suspense, romance, tragedy and loss. She draws the reader in early with tense, descriptive (often poetically so) chapters, after which the chapters shorten, quickening the pace of events. From the very beginning, the protagonists must choose between pursuit or resignation; buffeted about by norms and expectations, at times it seems that “sometimes hope is more injurious than submission”. The author reveals a biting humor, often through the unheard thoughts of her characters, and determined purpose in telling this story. If it is true that “love exacts a high price in the end”, is it not still the most indispensable possession? This initial effort by Ms. Hart is well worth a read, and hopefully there are more to come.

[MEC]

After reading Fingersmith, this book did not hold up well. One and a half stars because I did finish it. I used to love historical romances and this one was a disappointment. As a historical novel, I didn't get the feel of the time (late 1800s) or place (England), nor did I feel like I was reading a "victorian" or "regency" novel - I'm not an expert in those timeframes, but there were some glaring inaccuracies. The characters seemed flat and didn't engage me. I agree with another reader that the prologue didn't work well and was a bit confusing as I thought the book would be about Lily and Zora. It could have easily been removed and the information weaved into the main story and probably would have ratcheted up the gothic suspense as the reader pieced together the mystery.

[C.M.]

Twin spectres haunt the Netherfield estate: Fear and Shame. When Agnes Heady starts ghosthunting on its grounds, she discovers not only the woman locked away in the tower but the woman locked inside herself. At first, her curiosity is rewarded with heartache but Agnes does not give up. Even when Lily, the object of her affection, tells her, "You are too naïve to understand how little the world cares for your wants," Agnes presses on through dark twists and turns until her audacity is greatly rewarded.

`Lily of the Tower' is a charming first novel with sharp observations about marriages of convenience, familial betrayal, the costs of homophobia--not to mention one awesome thundercrack.

[Amy Robertson]

Elizabeth Hart's debut novel, Lily of the Tower, is a real treat. It's evocative both of Sarah Waters and of the 19th century sensationalist novels such as Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone. The author has weaved a twisty tale that is moody, atmospheric and romantic. Much to enjoy.