When the crossbow comes out, dear reader, run for your life

I predict this book will be the next sensation.  Everyone is going to be talking about it.  It's about a bloodthirsty governess named Winifred Notty and the havoc she wrecks upon her employers, the esteemed Pounds family of Ensor House in Grim Wolds, England.  I should clarify that the murderous mayhem is not limited to Ensor House.  Really, nothing within England is safe with Miss Notty around.  She is a character who will not be contained by man or beast or ghost or plague.

Each chapter of the book is set up with a creative title, reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel.  The Prologue starts out with a statement of death everywhere in the Victorian era, in the river with floating corpses, in the drinking water as typhoid and cholera and diphtheria, on display at the wax museum, and the wigs of the living taken from the hair of the dead.  The book begins with an image of a manor with the caption, "In three months everyone in this house will be dead."  From the very beginning, the reader knows what lies ahead. 

All the elements of a traditional Gothic or penny dreadful are present.  Manners and mores are on high because most of the action takes place during the countdown to Christmas.  There's Victorian horror on every page, plus fancy gowns and sumptuous feasts. 

I hope this gives you a taste of what this novella is all about.  I don't want to share too much and spoil the fun.  This book is ridiculously smart and well written.  And gory.  I don't want to downplay the shocking amount of violence, but I do encourage you to check this out.  It's wickedly good.