What a year it’s been for debuts!! This is another excellent read that I’d put on the back burner because I had over committed myself to blog tours. I’m so sorry I didn’t read it sooner because I absolutely LOVED it. This is my absolute favourite genre – gothic, historic fiction – but when added to the elements of spiritualism, transgressive females and dysfunctional families this would definitely come up on Goodreads as highly recommended. In Paris, 1866, a couple of sisters are living very separate lives; Sylvia who is now Baroness Devereaux and Charlotte Mothe, the sister she left behind with a drunken, violent father. When Charlotte pays a heavily disguised visit to Sylvie’s home she assumes their father is ill, but it’s a different aspect of her past she’s bringing to her sister’s door. Their mother had a business as a spirit medium, but Sylvie promised to put such shady dealings in the past when she married the Baron. Charlotte needs her sister for one last con, to pay her father’s medical bills. The aristocratic de Jacquinot family think they are being haunted by an aunt killed in the revolution. They will need to use all their tricks to frighten money out of this family, but they didn’t bank on being absolutely terrified too.
The Perrault fairy tale underpinning this story is ‘The Fairies’ but the sisters don’t necessarily agree on the interpretation. One sister is asked a favour by an old crone, a glass of water from the well, but she ignores her and is cursed to expel toads every time he opens his mouth. On the next day the other sister is commanded to provide a glass of water by a young beautiful woman and grants her the favour. The second sister opens her mouth and gold coins spill out. Perrault says one sister is good and one is bad and Sylvie accepts this, but Charlotte thinks changing her disguise was a mean trick.
“The test is rigged from the start – even before the fairy turned up, when Perrault labelled one sister good and one bad on the very first page, before either got a chance.”
However, by the end Sylvie has changed her perspective. She muses that if she had a daughter would she be toads or gold? She decides not to read her Perrault; ‘I think I will let her decide for herself how a girl should be.”
The de Jacquinot family are dysfunctional and have narrowed all their problems down to the daughter, Josephine. They are clearly struggling to stay afloat, with clear spaces on the wall where there used to be paintings. Yet none of them are working or making any money, still living like the aristocrats they once were. The grandfather seems grumpy but is convinced they have a visiting spectre – Aunt Sabine who died in the revolution when her throat was cut. Brother Maximilien is cynical, in his book there is no such thing as spirits and his sister is suffering from a prolonged bout of lunacy brought on by a dalliance with a once trusted friend of his. Josephine is absolutely convinced there’s a spirit. Charlotte and Sylvie started their routine and I’d not expected them to be charlatans! I loved the details of their routine – the snuffing out of candles, the ring of salt. I thought that the story of creating waxed spectral hands with their mother was a brilliantly quirky childhood memory! Charlotte adopts the patter again straight away, talking about “penumbral disturbances” and “liminal spaces”. Sylvie almost admires her sister as she weaves a tale around the de Jacquinot home and their errant daughter.
However, everyone is shocked when Sabine appears to possess her niece. Josephine has become a different person, babbling about something being taken from her and spitting with anger at her grandfather. Then she’s overcome, with ectoplasm pouring from her mouth. This is something they’ve heard of but have never seen spontaneously like this. That night the library walls are trashed and the ancestral paintings are slashed to pieces, all expect Sabine’s. The family suspect a poltergeist but how could they have slept through such destruction? After this even Maximilien is on board, yet Sylvie suspects something isn’t what it seems. Charlotte was vociferous in her defence of Josephine, almost as if she actually cares. Sylvie knows that her sister has become unnaturally attached to young women before. Before they can go any further Sylvie’s husband confronts her at home. He’s had her followed and suspects an affair with Maximilien de Jacquinot who is closer to Sylvie in age. Sylvie tries to protest her innocence, but it’s difficult when she has betrayed her husband, just in a different way. She can’t reason with him and can only do what he asks, to leave. Now she is back in her miserable childhood home, listening to her father snoring as she lays awake and bereft.
Here the author pulls a brilliant ‘Fingersmith’ style twist, with a change of narrator and perspective of the same events. This narrative is what happens to the girl who spews toads and doesn’t conform. Charlotte is the daughter who stayed behind and still nurses the father who she suspects of killing her mother. In Charlotte’s story, instead of the aristocracy we meet an interesting set of characters who live and love outside the norms of society. I loved meeting Mimi who could fill a book of his own! The atmosphere and settings in the book are brilliant and give a very varied look at the city of Paris, from the poverty Sylvie and Charlotte come from to the remaining aristocrats and their crumbling mansions. This is a society recovering from the shock of revolution and a shift in the existing hierarchy. The de Jacquinot family are like their mansion, falling apart. I loved the dual staircase too, with Josephine and Charlotte using the servant’s exit together when surely they should use the main stairs? There’s are further tantalising hints of people who live outside the rules, quite lavishly if Mimi’s quarters are the example. I could see why Sylvie had opted to disappear into the money classes, because the difference between her rooms and the home she came from is stark. She also truly loves her husband and hasn’t married him for a comfortable life as her sister thinks. Charlotte does feel the dice was loaded when it came to their differing fortunes and I think she sees the Perrault fairy tale as an allegory for her sexuality. Sylvie is able to conform in this way and Charlotte can’t, she’s born the way she is into a world that doesn’t accept her. I was also sympathetic to her situation at home, trying to care for a man who is hard to love and has been violent towards them all. This was an amazing read, genuinely spooky but also a novel about families. Those who fit into their family and those who don’t. This is a fabulous ghost story with an unexpected twist and a wonderful glimpse of a society in flux.
Meet the Author
Carmella Lowkis grew up in Wiltshire and has a degree in English literature and Creative Writing from the University of Warwick. After graduating, she worked in libraries, before moving into book marketing. Carmella lives in North London with her girlfriend. You can follow her on social media @carmellalowkis. Spitting Gold is her first novel.
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