Publishers WeeklySteeped in the gothic tradition and borrowing freely from Jane Eyre, this debut romantic fantasy takes few risks with an old-school tale of love, betrayal, and redemption. Jane Eliot, covering her fey-scarred face with an iron half-mask to prevent her magically induced rage from leaking out, takes a position as a governess at a half-ruined manor house on the moors. Dorie, Jane's charge, is also fey-cursed; her mother, while pregnant, was taken over by the fey during the Great War. Dorie's father, Edward Rochart, broods over Dorie's fate as well as his own dark bargains with the fey who haunt the nearby woods. Emotive eyes are a frequent feature ("There was a well of sorrow in those amber eyes"; "The waterfall of desire spilled over into her eyes").
