England, 1840. Orabella Mumthrope spies an unexpected visitor in her uncle's parlor. Scruffy in appearance yet claiming to be the scion of a fabulously wealthy family, Elias Blakersby declares a deep desire to make Orabella his wife. The orphaned daughter of a white man and a Black woman, Orabella never expected to marry. But her uncle has many debts, and Orabella, curious about the seeming devotion Elias bestows upon her, agrees.
Coles turns the typical fairy tale upside down and inside out and back again. The novel shifts to something like a fever dream ... Midnight Rooms is a genre-spanning work of history and horror, fantasy and fairy tale, that pulses with a dark energy from start to unsettling finish.
Coles astounds in her atmospheric gothic debut ... Coles’s prose is evocative and strange and pairs brilliantly with the gothic tropes she expertly deploys.
While this novel has many of the trappings of a classic gothic, its supernatural undertones make it stand out. At times it feels like a fever dream, and will undoubtedly leave readers confused as they try to parse out what exactly is happening to Orabella within the dimly lit halls of Korringhill; the narrative becomes increasingly unclear as the story progresses.
