Charlotte Kersten

Summary

Fortune Blyth suffered the loss of a secret child when she was sixteen and vowed never to let another man touch her. Ten years later she is content with Ma and her beloved birds. 

But when witch hunters come to town it isn’t long before fingers are pointed at the spinster and she is forced to choose; stay and hang, or marry a man who can offer her safety far from home. She chooses marriage.

Her husband’s island home is not the safe haven she expected, with a surly housekeeper and an eccentric mother-in-law to contend with. What’s more, there are secrets lurking in the shadows of the house, and Fortune is about to discover there are some things worse than death. … Perhaps she would have been better off hanging after all.

Review

I think Our Gifted Hearts would be an excellent book to recommend for fans of Weyward by Emilia Hart, and I’m struck by how many comparisons there are between the two – you have a woman accused of witchcraft who has a special affinity for nature, a developing pregnancy, and even a villain who is killed the exact same way! That being said, Our Gifted Heart’s origins as a Bluebeard retelling ground it in a lot of classic Gothic staples too – the isolated house on the sea, the forbidding housekeeper, the mysterious husband, the decaying wealth and luxury, the nights of creeping through a manor for clues. The book definitely shines the most in its supernatural moments, unsettling, grotesque details and descriptions of wild, rugged nature.

That being said, Fortune is a somewhat frustrating character to spend time with because she is so incredibly passive throughout almost all the book, resigned to the inevitability of her pregnancy and impending death until the birth of the baby and support from her (very sweet) love interest finally kickstart her into action. While this could be a good way of exploring the effects of her early grief and trauma, her characterization and interiority never quite feel strong enough to make her time spent so resigned and passive feel very interesting or realistic compared to the very final stretch of the book where she is suddenly extremely active.

I also didn’t get along very well with the author’s writing style, which includes a lot of comma splices and short, declarative sentences that end up combining to feel somewhat awkward overall. The writing also makes very little attempt to ground itself in any place or time period. Tl;dr, this is a Gothic Bluebeard retelling that has some positive elements of creepiness and atmosphere, but if you’re looking for the GOAT, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber still reigns supreme!