Misery Hates Company

Hobbs introduces aspiring archaeologist Miss Marigold Manners in this amusing debut and series launch set in 1894 Boston. Marigold’s socialite parents have just died, leaving her without property to inherit or sufficient funds to continue her education. Facing an uncertain future, the witty and confident 21-year-old receives a letter from her mother’s cousin, Sophronia Hatchet, summoning her to Great Misery Island—a largely abandoned blip off the coast of Massachusetts—so Sophronia can right a “great and godless wrong” her “man” did to Marigold’s mother. Curious, Marigold heads to the island and finds the Hatchet home in disrepair, with her cousins beaten down by their patriarch, the Bible-thumping Ellery Hatchet. Marigold tries to get her taciturn relatives, including Sophronia, talking, but most are brooding and tight-lipped. When someone turns up dead and a local girl goes missing, Marigold suspects the tragedies might be connected to the secrets the Hatchets are harboring. The narrative carries unmistakable echoes of Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm, and the mystery only kicks in toward the end, but Marigold is such good company that readers are unlikely to care. A sequel would be welcome. Agent: Danielle Egan Miller, Browne & Miller Literary. (Nov.)