To be clear: the problem with this book is not that Hester Fox focuses too much on the romantic arc of her characters.

The moment when the main characters vanquish this antagonist was like a “How To Write a Murder Mystery Paint-by-Numbers.” Then it’s all back to moony-eyed, nonsensical romantic melodrama. The villain monologue was endless and completely preposterous. Towards the end of the story, Fox does remember that she’s supposed to be writing a mystery, so she reveals the mystery with all the heavy-handedness of a troll. I wanted to yack nearly the entire time, especially once their completely unbelievable backstories go dramatically unveiled. The self-flagellating and navel-gazing was infinite, interspersed with heinous florid purple prose descriptions of their emotions, for no purpose at all. The book wants to be a Gothic mystery, but most of the pages are spent exploring the two protagonists’ absolutely self-indulgent angst and “passion” for each other. I 100% admit that Fox had a great idea with this book-but she absolutely lost focus within the first few chapters and struggled thereafter to keep things together. Angsty preacher man, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the rich widow. Then there are some macabre displays put up around town, full of voodoo dolls, animal carcasses, etc. An angsty widower moves from Massachusetts to Maine in order to start a Transcendentalist church, but bumps up against a population of superstitious, close-minded people too busy gossiping about a rich local widow who is, clearly, a witch.

The premise of the book is promising, I suppose. I also think that if an actual romance novelist had written The Widow of Pale Harbor, things would have gone much smoother. While perusing critical reviews for this book on Goodreads, I saw numerous complaints that though the book is marketed as a Gothic historical in the style of Poe, it’s really more of a “trashy romance.” While I disagree with the term “trashy romance” categorically, I do agree that Hester Fox cannot write a love story to save her life.

Put another way, I did not like this book. Unfortunately, my list of words is more like: insipid, inane, overwritten, clumsy, overwrought, and silly. These are all words that, if you asked Hester Fox probably, are meant to describe The Widow of Pale Harbor.

The widow of pale harbour