Sarah's Reviews > The Perilous Gard

Books like The Perilous Gard remind me of why I love to read.

Our story begins in England, summer of 1558, in an unpleasant castle where Princess Elizabeth Tudor keeps a small retinue, ever watched and harassed by her angry half-sister, Queen Mary. I knew right away that I was in good hands because Elizabeth Marie Pope conveys deftly that Mary bullied Elizabeth without making the older royal out to be a one-dimensional monster.

One of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, a stupid beauty named Alicia Sutton, writes an angry letter to Queen Mary complaining of the conditions at Hatfield. Mary is infuriated by the letter, but believes Alicia too sweet and witless a creature to have composed it herself, so the royal punishment falls instead on the head of Katherine, Alicia’s plain-looking and plain-spoken older sister.

Princess Elizabeth has no choice but to send her friend Katherine to the place “suggested” by the Queen: Sir Geoffrey Heron’s desolate manor, Elvenwood Hall, sometimes called the Perilous Gard. Elizabeth promises to retrieve Katherine as soon as she has the power, but that doesn’t seem likely in the foreseeable future…

Kate soon discovers a number of things awry at the house in the spooky Elvenwood. Her host, Sir Geoffrey, is the picture of chivalry to her, but won’t even acknowledge his younger brother, the troubled and handsome Christopher. Sir Geoffrey’s little daughter is missing or dead, and everyone has a different story regarding what became of her. Master John, the steward of the house, is keeping secrets from the household he serves. The poor folk in the nearby village live in a constant state of servile dread, and it is not the family of the castle that frightens them. And rumors swirl of a malevolent race, human-like but not human, who live in a labyrinth below the ancient town well and are responsible for all manner of dark deeds in the neighborhood…

Pope’s writing is meticulous, and this novel does not leave a single thread of its tapestry dangling. Every detail becomes important by the end.

The world-building is so thorough that you might feel a wave of homesickness for the Gard once you put the book down.

The characters, particularly Kate and Christopher, are lovable and flawed and full of life. (view spoiler)[Pope creates a great deal of tension between those two, even though there’s a notable lack of sensual description. They don’t kiss until the very last page—and even then, it’s implied—but the dialogues between them sparkle, with the true meanings of their words concealed. They are now one of my OTPs and I’m only sorry I didn’t meet them earlier. (hide spoiler)]

The themes of the story are rich, and I didn’t expect many of them going in. (view spoiler)[There are questions here about paganism versus Christianity in British history, and whether or not magic can real or smoke and mirrors. (hide spoiler)] All this is built into an enthralling historical fantasy that surges to a perfect climax and a eucatastrophic ending.

In short, if you loved any of the following:

The ballad of Tam Lin
Cupid and Psyche
Yeats’ "Stolen Child"
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Silver Chair
The Dark is Rising series
Labyrinth
The Queen’s Thief series
Crown Duel and Court Duel
Wildwood Dancing or Shadowfell
The Spiderwick Chronicles

Then treat yourself to The Perilous Gard.