MISERY HATES COMPANY
by Elizabeth Hobbs
A modern woman of 1894 faces the vicissitudes of fortune.
Marigold Manners, who grew up in a wealthy Boston family, planned to use her Wellesley education to pursue a career in archeology, but it all comes to nought when her parents die after burning through their entire fortune, leaving her with a modest annuity and no home. Although she’s mightily attracted to Harvard-educated lawyer Jonathan Cabot Cox, who returns her feelings, she has no plans to marry. A letter from her mother’s cousin Sophronia Hatchet of Great Misery Island, off the New England coast, claims that "my man once did your mother…a great and godless wrong" that must be repaired, and she invites Marigold to come see for herself. Her courage is tested when she arrives to find a moldering house, a hardscrabble farm, and an assortment of truly odd relatives. Her handsome cousins Wilbert and Seviah have crude manners and no clue about any wrongdoing. The household also includes her cousin Daisy, a stunningly beautiful replica of Marigold’s mother; Cleon, a general servant; Ellery Hatchet, a religious fanatic; his unseen mother, Alva, who rules the roost; and Lucy Dove, a Black woman hired to care for Alva. Marigold rolls up her sleeves and slowly cleans up the place while setting her cousins on a path to a better life. Great Misery poses many mysteries to be solved, beginning but not ending with the deaths of several local women. With help from Cab Cox and several other friends, Marigold eventually uncovers a shocking tale of evil.
A humdinger introduction to a new series whose characters bring to mind those of both Emily Brontë and L.M. Montgomery.