The House Saphir

The House Saphir takes as its inspiration the French folk tale Bluebeard, in which a nobleman murders three of his four wives. Although the gruesome killings happened over a hundred years before the start of the novel, the malevolent ghost of Count Bastien – also known as Monsieur le Bleu -is still very much in evidence in the mansion, now occupied by his great-grandson Count Armand. As an added extra, the ghosts of his three wives are volubly but benignly present, too.

The time has come to get rid of the Count and who better to do that than a witch well versed in the dark arts? Enter Mallory Fontaine and her sister Anais, encountered by Armand on one of their fraudulent ghost tours.  Mallory’s only gift is the ability to see ghosts and Anais lost her gifts during a childhood experiment. But when Armand offers a huge sum of money in return for the permanent banishment of Bastien’s ghost, Mallory swiftly accepts and the impoverished sisters willingly move into The House Saphir.

What follows is an entertaining and sometimes alarming series of encounters with a variety of bizarre monsters and an elaborate charade on Mallory’s part as she tries to convince Armand-who she is reluctant to admit she is attracted to-that she has a wealth of knowledge at her disposal with which to remove his monstrous great-grandfather. This latter artifice provides a good deal of humour, as does the presence of the ghost of Triphine, one of Bastien’s wives, who is by turn petulant and prone to elaborately orchestrated histrionics. As the other two murdered wives also appear, the repartee between the three is a rich seam of fascination.

When Julie, the housemaid, is lured into marriage with Bastien, posing as Armand, she is inevitably murdered but Mallory suspects Armand, with whom Julie was completely infatuated. At its best, this shift and weave of alliances adds an intriguing complexity to the narrative. However, it is clear that Armand is besotted with Mallory but she maintains a distance, unable to trust her heart and so the narrative jinks, not always convincingly and at times too obviously around this fragile romance.

This story is packed with memorable characters-the two men who comprise the remarkable Fitcher’s Troupe, the three original dead wives and a teeming horde of fantastical creatures. Pour in an on/off romance, a savage, uncompromising ghost and a liberal helping of humour and there is much to commend it. A stronger central section would have improved the book still more. Lovers of gothic horror and romance will swallow this down whole!