Rating: 
Summary: Hard to get into, but once in, you're IN
Review: I read this on a friend's recommendation, and the first chapter came across as so contrived and precious, that it was difficult to get into. Sentences like: "Rather, you must take the night steamer from Boston, which deposits you at the Grange House pier before teatime." Or: "And though I watch for it, I am never prepared for the first sight of Grange House on its point, though I know the approach, and early learned to read where the slick black shale ledges of the shoreline turn to the white granite boulders marking the entrance to Middle Haven's harbor."Having read the whole novel, I now think that if only she'd just left off the first 3 paragraphs, the whole book could have gone a lot better. Oh well. The fact is, because of the strength of this friend's recommendation I gave the book another chance and by the third chapter was totally wrapped up in the gentle yet mysterious world of Grange House. So much, in fact, that I resented getting to my subway stop each morning and having to come back to the real world! I finally got so frustrated that I just took a few hours off and finished the darn thing! About all I feel safe telling you without giving away the story, is that the author weaves a gentle and mysterious story following a teenage girl who finds herself on an investigation of the lives lived in Grange House. It has elements of each of the Bronte novels, with a sprinkling of E.M. Forster. The author drew me in so far that as she lets us in on delightfully intimate Victorian letters and diaries of the characters, I felt guilty for infringing on their privacy! If you can ride out the precious language for a bit, and forgive the attempts to be original that produce a sentence like: "...for Mama's fear of the fog would dampen the spirit of the voyage, and Papa's cheery dismissal of that fear would only clamp shut her lips," the sensual and mysterious atmosphere will seduce you. If this is your kind of thing I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as I had hoped or expected
Review: I was excited to read this book, based on reviews I had read here and elsewhere. Although I enjoyed the first half, I started to get bored with the ethereal language and obscurity of the main diary section. By the time the book resurfaced in present-day 1897, I was ready for some explanations and conclusions. Instead, Maisie's voice morphed into that of Nell Grange's diary--cloudy and self-absorbed. Certainly it was the author's intention to have the diary affect Maisie in this way, but I found it tedious. It took Maisie a lot longer to figure out the reality of who was who in the diary than it did me as a reader (save one twist); yet other mysteries remained unsolved (like why the couple at the beginning of the book died). By the end, I was reading just to get to the end, which was taking a lot longer than I wanted it to--not how I usually finish a book, not being able to put it down. Maybe I just don't appreciate Victorian gothic literature, but I remember enjoyed Jane Eyre.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific gothic mystery/romance/coming-of-age/ghost story
Review: If you like gothic mystery or a good ghost story - I'm thinking Wilkie Collins, or "Jane Eyre," or Henry James (or does anyone remember the book "Jane-Emily," by Patricia Clapp, a favorite of my youth?), then "Grange House" will be a treat. Intelligent and graceful writing, engrossing characters, great atmosphere, romance, ghosts, secrets of the past, spooky and foreboding and gripping and wonderful!
Rating:
Summary: You'll love it
Review: It's coming on summer again, and this summer book won't disappoint you. It has all the elements you are longing for: a beautiful Maine Coast, a rambling summer hotel, and an engaging heroine. Ms. Blake's writing is intelligent and has depth. You don't want to miss this book
Rating:
Summary: Taut Victorian Thriller
Review: Maisie Thomas, a seventeen-year-old girl coming of age in the late part of the nineteenth century, has returned to Grange House, the Maine hotel she has visited with her well-heeled parents every summer of her life. Standing at the brow of the boat, she eagerly looks up to the attic window to see if her old friend, Miss Grange, is waiting for her. So begins Grange House, a wonderful Victorian mystery by Sarah Blake. But little does Miss Thomas know that this summer is to be different - Miss Grange has a task in mind for Maisie, desiring Maisie to finish the tale of the house that she had started so long ago. To do so, Maisie will need to explore her history and the history of the history of the people and places of the surrounding area. Along the way, she discovers the true meaning of love and family.
Rating:
Summary: Very best of vivid descriptions!
Review: Sarah Blake created a winner with Grange House. A modern writer writes a book so full of vivid Victorian scenes, and the language of the past. There are suprises around every corner, and you will be delighted by the weaving and twisting plot. What kept me from giving the book 5 stars was that it introduces views from a couple of different characters, and their stories start abruptly in the middle of the book, maybe confusing what character is narrating, at the time.
Rating: 
Summary: Captures the Victorian Atmoshpere
Review: Sarah Blake has written a novel that, while reading it, I wished I could have liked more. She truly does capture the feel of a Britsh Victorian novel. Setting this novel in the closing decade of the nineteenth century, the Gilded Age, may have been a mistake as the heroine does not feel in any way connected to that gilded time and the novel itself nevers points forward with any strength of purpose into the twentienth century. It seems to be looking backward into the ghosts of the past. The author handles the switches in the novel from the diary of one character back into the narrative voice of the lead character and back again quite adroitly. I was ultimately most dissappointed with the ending when the drama slid at times into a rather turgid melodrama. The atmosphere had the right touch of romance and mystery but the story itself was not always as effective.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Gem!
Review: Sarah Blake manages to capture the very essence of 1896 Maine even using the vernacular of the era. A beautifully written book that will hold you spellbound until the very last page. Sort of a cross between Anne Rivers Siddons' "Colony" and "Jane Eyre". If you enjoyed "City of Light" (another work celebrating the Victorian era) you will adore "Grange House"! Highly recommended for a long, rainy weekend-grab a cup of tea and settle in front of a roaring fire for a weekends' worth of prime entertainment. Give us more, Sarah Blake!!!
Rating:
Summary: I was transported to the closing months of the 19th c.
Review: The author's ear for the spoken language of that era and how it was informed by propriety, decorum, subtlety and delicacy is a delight to read. I did not buy this book as a mystery per se, but the story is so compelling that I read it all in one sitting, staying up until 3AM to finish it. The mounting dread in the laudanum-stupefied last section of the book is truly gripping. I came away from this book thinking about how people's perceptions of events - and the stories they devise to make sense of their perceptions - affect and dictate their subsequent actions.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The problem with this book for me is that I want to love it. I picked it up and was so bored by it, that I put it down again for a couple of months. Now I'm trying to get through it, just for the sake of having finished it. I want to love it because I love the "idea" of the story, but the execution of it is disappointing. The wordy, stilted, language detracts from the story. Another reader mentioned something about the novel's "turgid melodrama." I couldn't agree more. I also want to like the characters, but find them to be two dimensional, colorless and overwrought. Unless you're like me, who has to try to finish every book I start, skip this one altogether and reread du Maurier's REBECCA instead.
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