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Florence and Giles
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Review
‘Real atmosphere is increasingly rare in novels and here it is in spades…A darkly glamorous tour de force.’
Wendy Holden, DAILY MAIL
'Harding rings enough ingenious changes on James's study of perversity to produce his own full-blown Gothic horror tale. The climax of their struggle… is genuinely exciting and shocking.' THE INDEPENDENT
‘Florence and Giles is an elegant literary exercise worked out with the strictness of a fugue: imagine Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw reworked by Edgar Allan Poe…Nothing prepares you for the chillingly ruthless but inevitable finale.’ THE TIMES
'A tight gothic thriller… The climax becomes unbearably tense. Florence feels the horror of her situation "cheese-grating" her soul, which is just how Harding leaves the reader feeling at the end of this creepily suggestive story.' FINANACIAL TIMES
‘Harding’s creepy, ingenious tale slyly wrongfoots the reader, and its deliciously sinister conclusion is the stuff of troubled nights.’ THE LADY
‘Brilliantly creepy’ DAILY MIRROR
‘An intriguing read’ GRAZIA
‘A good, clever, modern take on old-style American gothic; a creepy haunted house tale in which the living are just as eerie as any real or imagined ghouls.’ NEW ZEALAND HERALD
‘a scarily good story, in an arrestingly unusual narrative voice.’ THE OXFORD TIMES
Product Description
A sinister Gothic tale in the tradition of The Woman in Black and The Fall of the House of Usher
1891. In a remote and crumbling New England mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from reading. Left to her own devices she devours books in secret and talks to herself - and narrates this, her story - in a unique language of her own invention. By night, she sleepwalks the corridors like one of the old house's many ghosts and is troubled by a recurrent dream in which a mysterious woman appears to threaten her younger brother Giles. Sometimes Florence doesn't sleepwalk at all, but simply pretends to so she can roam at will and search the house for clues to her own baffling past.
After the sudden violent death of the children's first governess, a second teacher, Miss Taylor, arrives, and immediately strange phenomena begin to occur. Florence becomes convinced that the new governess is a vengeful and malevolent spirit who means to do Giles harm. Against this powerful supernatural enemy, and without any adult to whom she can turn for help, Florence must use all her intelligence and ingenuity to both protect her little brother and preserve her private world.
Inspired by and in the tradition of Henry James' s The Turn of the Screw, Florence & Giles is a gripping gothic page-turner told in a startlingly different and wonderfully captivating narrative voice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a wonderful piece of Gothic writing, and I was totally gripped by this narrative, as told through the unique voice of 12 year old auto-didact Florence, whose idiosyncratic usage of the English language, culled from her extensive (but forbidden) reading in the old library of the spooky New England home that she shares with her younger brother Giles and the servants, is one of the joys of this book. Florence's colourful expressions are entrancing; thus, for example, she speaks of 'a sneezery of dust', of a visitor 'Gargerying his hat' (assume a Great Expectations ref.!), she describes herself as 'fairytaled and Rapunzelled in my tower', and, most delicious of all, (the phrase that really made me smile) when, speaking of her plans to thwart her sinister governess, she says " I would wasp her picnic".
Inspired by The Turn of the Screw, this story offers not one governess, but two, (or are there two?) and with her second governess, Florence plays a game of cat and mouse, convinced that the unpleasant Miss Taylor, who seems to have supernatural powers, is planning to harm her little brother Giles.
The question could be, who is the cat and who is the mouse? Can we believe Florence? For much of the book, I rooted for her and even at the very end, after every disturbing twist and turn, she had my respect.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, (avoiding spoilers!). The main thing is the book is full of tension and suprises and the ending is satisfyingly chilling. If you like ghosts, gothic and a sense of growing unease, try 'Florence and Giles' for yourself.
I read a lot of Gothic fiction, and this certainly didn't disappoint. A real gem!
Inspired by The Turn of the Screw, this story offers not one governess, but two, (or are there two?) and with her second governess, Florence plays a game of cat and mouse, convinced that the unpleasant Miss Taylor, who seems to have supernatural powers, is planning to harm her little brother Giles.
The question could be, who is the cat and who is the mouse? Can we believe Florence? For much of the book, I rooted for her and even at the very end, after every disturbing twist and turn, she had my respect.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, (avoiding spoilers!). The main thing is the book is full of tension and suprises and the ending is satisfyingly chilling. If you like ghosts, gothic and a sense of growing unease, try 'Florence and Giles' for yourself.
I read a lot of Gothic fiction, and this certainly didn't disappoint. A real gem!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a well-written novel which is also a wonderfully Gothic thriller, complete with shadowy corridors, spooky mirrors and vulnerable, isolated children. The narrator is Florence, a young girl who is immensely likeable and engaging. One of the hallmarks of this novel is the peculiar, idiosyncratic language she has developed for herself and which pervades the book. One of the central questions too is how reliable she is as a narrator - is she right to be terrified of her "evil" new Governness with supernatural powers - or is she misreading the whole situation? It takes us the course of the novel to decide. Well-crafted and well-written as well as a fast paced ride.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The persuasive, yet seemingly not quite reliable young narrator, Florence, a fetchingly odd twelve year old whose days revolve around smuggling books from the library as she has been forbidden to learn to read, lives with her brother Giles at Blithe House -
"...a house uncomfortabled and shabbied by prudence, a neglect of a place, tightly pursed (my absent uncle having lost interest in it), leaked and rotted and mothed and rusted, coldly draughted, dim lit and crawled with dark corners..."
- the home of the uncle they have never met, with a few servants and the occasional governess. But the previous governess perished in an accident on the lake, and the latest - Miss Taylor - has aroused suspicion in Florence of sinister motives upon her arrival, being far too interested in Giles for Florence's peace of mind.
I loved this book for the fun that Florence has with language, for the sinister atmosphere aroused, the creepiness first peeking through Florence's observations and then asserting itself much more authoritatively, and for the unfolding of the mystery - John Harding doesn't over-clue the reader, but gradually allows us to intuit the motives and actions in Florence's narration - and, of course, for poor gallant, clumsy Theo, the gangly boy who steals kisses in exchange for poetry.
I haven't read 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James yet, it's one of my overlooked-for-no-good-reason classics. So, since other reviewers have pointed out strong ties (homage, retelling, reworking or revisiting, I didn't want to spoil either book for myself, so didn't dig too deep) there is at least one layer of story here that I've missed; hopefully I can still enjoy that aspect in retrospect.
Meanwhile, the book that Florence and Giles most reminds me of, is 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson. It is paradoxically a lovely story and an awful one simultaneously, and the most fun I've had reading for a long time.
"...a house uncomfortabled and shabbied by prudence, a neglect of a place, tightly pursed (my absent uncle having lost interest in it), leaked and rotted and mothed and rusted, coldly draughted, dim lit and crawled with dark corners..."
- the home of the uncle they have never met, with a few servants and the occasional governess. But the previous governess perished in an accident on the lake, and the latest - Miss Taylor - has aroused suspicion in Florence of sinister motives upon her arrival, being far too interested in Giles for Florence's peace of mind.
I loved this book for the fun that Florence has with language, for the sinister atmosphere aroused, the creepiness first peeking through Florence's observations and then asserting itself much more authoritatively, and for the unfolding of the mystery - John Harding doesn't over-clue the reader, but gradually allows us to intuit the motives and actions in Florence's narration - and, of course, for poor gallant, clumsy Theo, the gangly boy who steals kisses in exchange for poetry.
I haven't read 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James yet, it's one of my overlooked-for-no-good-reason classics. So, since other reviewers have pointed out strong ties (homage, retelling, reworking or revisiting, I didn't want to spoil either book for myself, so didn't dig too deep) there is at least one layer of story here that I've missed; hopefully I can still enjoy that aspect in retrospect.
Meanwhile, the book that Florence and Giles most reminds me of, is 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson. It is paradoxically a lovely story and an awful one simultaneously, and the most fun I've had reading for a long time.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Shivered me quite ...
I've just finished listening the the audio version of Florence and Giles in the car, and it took me a moment to come back down to earth (how I managed to listen and concentrate on... Read more
Published 10 days ago by K. Clarke
An imaginatively written, spooky tale
I recently finished Florence and Giles and thought it was superb. The use of language made it a pleasure to read. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jimmbob
Creepy, gripping, playful
Florence and Giles announces itself as a curious story in the first sentence, and a curious, macabre, and powerfully evocative tale it remains to its tense and thrilling... Read more
Published 1 month ago by owl music
A scary delight to read
From the very first page, this novel had me captivated by the unique (and surprisingly contagious) voice of the narrator, Florence. Read more
Published 1 month ago by C. King
Ending a bit odd
I read this book as it was recommended as a scary horror book. I didn't find it scary one bit, maybe a little sinister. Read more
Published 2 months ago by L. Hunter
great book
I went by the previous reviews and was not disapointed, i really enjoyed this book and was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what florence was going to do next, kept me... Read more
Published 2 months ago by fantasybook lover
Excellent read!
I loved this book and read it in one weekend. Brilliantly well (and unusually) written. Well worth paying full price for and an absolute bargain for 99p on Kindle.
Published 2 months ago by Claire
Florence and Giles - the other world
When I decided to get involved with these reviews I said that others gave you advice on the stories so I would just give my views as an average (?) reader. Read more
Published 4 months ago by norogis
Lovely, dark and imaginative
Really enjoyed the language of the narrator, the long kafkaesque descriptions of her interminable, compulsive routines, and the unfolding of the story. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Selene Doros
A brilliant idea, almost perfectly executed
Having read and loved Turn of the Screw I was excited to read this. As other reviewers have mentioned, Florence's narrative style takes some getting used to, but once you get used... Read more
Published 4 months ago by SamManc
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