A Collector of Hearts (by Sally Quilford)

(Amazon UK link)

I have liked all the books I’ve read by Sally Quilford on my Kindle, and downloaded several of them when she has offered them free for a short period. However it sometimes takes me a while to find one of them to read; it happens most often when I’m travelling. That’s the case for ‘A Collector of Hearts’, a novella that I apparently downloaded about a decade ago but have only just read.

Sally Quilford writes in quite a variety of genres, but her main gift is that of characterisation. She weaves a good plot, too, and while this isn’t exactly crime fiction, or a mystery, or even a ghost story, I would perhaps categorise it as a gothic romance, albeit in a rather mild forum.

The main character is a young woman called Caroline who is visiting a stately home for a few days, culminating in a fancy dress halloween ball. Caroline is the paid companion of a rather cranky elderly woman who finds it hard to keep anyone around her. But Caroline needs to be earning, and she quite enjoys her job even though it’s often frustrating. She’s the only companion who has ever been able to stand up to her employer, and hopes she won’t overstep the boundaries.

She’s out for a walk to post a letter at dusk, and, being a practical kind of person, has no worries about ghosts despite having heard stories of spooks and ghouls at the castle. However she’s quite startled to encounter a young man walking out of the mist; she doesn’t have a good first impression of him, but then again she can’t quite forget him. I assumed they were going to end up together, as that’s how this kind of romantic fiction tends to work, but couldn’t really see how it could happen based on their casual, apparently random and very brief meeting.

So it’s no surprise when the young man turns up as a guest at the houseparty, claiming an old friendship with the host. Caroline thinks there’s something odd about this, but it’s not her place to ask questions and she’s more concerned with trying to look after her employer who is worried about a valuable jewel being stolen. It seems as though there might be some justification for this, when Caroline’s room has obviously been rifled in her absence…

It’s not a long novel; I read it in about three hours on a flight that would otherwise have been quite boring, and found myself engrossed almost from the start. I was concerned it might be a bit too scary for my tastes, but the amount of tension proved to be just right: it kept me reading, wondering what was going on and how it would be resolved, but without any real sense of dread.  There are quite a few different characters but I quickly worked out - and remembered - the ones that mattered, seeing them all through Caroline’s eyes as the weekend progresses.

There are some surprises, some unexpected revelations, and the inevitable (albeit very low-key) romance.  I thought it was very well done, within the bounds of a pocket-novel or novella format, with a positive outcome… and then an epilogue that complemented the story nicely, though to say anything else would be too much of a spoiler.

Definitely recommended if you want a quick, light and engrossing read that doesn’t take more than a few hours.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews