The Death of Jane Lawrence

by Caitlin Starling

October 5, 2021 · St. Martin's Press

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I love a good gothic, and The Death of Jane Lawrence had a lot of buzz. But now that I have read it, I am confused about three key elements, which I list here in a Non-spoilery format:

1. Is the title accurate?
2. Is this a romance?
3. What the hell happened?

The book starts off in standard but solid Gothic mode. The main character, Jane, wants an “unconventional” marriage, one which will allow her to remain independent while also having financial and social security. She doesn’t want children and she wants to live her own life, so she has to find a spouse who is willing to enter a marriage of convenience. Jane seeks out a doctor who fits the bill in that he’s close in age, moderately well-off, and needs an accountant (Jane is brilliant with numbers).

Sure enough, Dr. Augustine Lawrence is willing to marry her, and they really hit it off, so much so that Jane starts to think this might not be a marriage solely of convenience after all. The deal is that Jane will work and live at his home office in town, and he will spend nights at his ancestral mansion, Lindridge Hall. He tells her she is never to spend a night at Lindridge and that he must never spend a night away from it. Of course plot things happen and she does spend a night there and to the shock of no one other than Jane the place is haunted as fuck.

The first part of the book is thus a solid, traditional Gothic (creepy house, husband with secrets, forbidden rooms, a gutsy heroine with a candelabra, a lot of weather, etc). Jane is a brilliant, independent person who manages to hold a patient’s insides open during a surgery on her very first visit to her husband’s office without fainting, crying, or puking. This is an impressive achievement since the operation is gory, prolonged, and performed with only a bit of ether as anesthesia. On top of that, Jane had only shown up to the surgery on that occasion to take a look at ledgers, not to stare at a person’s exposed intestines. As if that wasn’t enough, Jane promptly learns that magic is a thing and that her patient was suffering from an injury caused by magic. She takes it in stride.

About halfway through the book the tone swerves away from gothic romance into full-on horror including astonishing levels of gore. Jane quickly becomes an unreliable narrator when she attempts a spell that requires going for five nights without sleep. Aided by some of her new husband’s cocaine (he has it in his stash of medical supplies), she does various spellcraft things that become increasingly bizarre until neither the reader nor Jane knows what to make of things. Reader, be prepared for LITERAL buckets of blood here.

This transition would have worked better if there had been a gradual build up, but Jane experiences a high level of terror early and pretty much stays there. I would have liked a smoother transition in tone and a more gradual escalation of Jane’s fear and stress levels as her time without sleep accrued. There’s a lot of repetition during the five night long spell that bogs the plot down considerably without adding to character or helping me make sense of what’s happening.

It is also jarring that the previously intelligent and sensible Jane makes several baffling and inane choices. Why would Jane agree to marry someone who is clearly harboring a terrible secret? She has other candidates that she can approach, after all. Dr. Augustine was just the first on the list. Pro tip: don’t marry someone who says that you can never come to his house at night and he can’t leave his house at night! Has this poor woman been studying so much math that she neglected to read fiction and folklore? Has she no common sense? When the guy says, “Whatever you do don’t go into the cellars,” LEAVE!

Also, given that the first half of the book is all about the many reasons that one should not attempt to do magic under any circumstances, how can she possibly think it’s a good plan to attempt to perform magic, especially magic of the creepy variety?

I felt that the setting added to the confusion while not contributing anything that couldn’t have been otherwise present (other than magic).

I liked the prose in this book and I liked Jane’s tenacity and her abilities with math. I also initially liked the romance between Jane and Augustine, two people who don’t expect to find love but who are astonished to find that they actually LIKE each other. I was, however, too unforgiving towards Augustine for keeping certain secrets from Jane to root for their romance for long, and without understanding the ending I can’t say whether it’s a happy one or not (although there is a significant hint that something is Not Right).

I’d say this book is for fans of gothic horror who can appreciate both the first section of the book, which leans towards gothic with a little horror, and the second, which is horror with a little gothic. It’s also a good fit for readers who are willing to put some work into following the plot – if you want a light read that you can enjoy on autopilot, this won’t work. However, if you can put up with the book’s many flaws (it’s confusing, the pace is slow and repetitive, and many things just don’t make sense) then you might enjoy the impeccable use of gothic motifs to create a mood and Jane’s stubborn devotion to solving the problem in front of her, be it magical or mundane.