Madly, Deeply by Erica Crouch

(4 Stars)

Madly, Deeply

*My copy was kindly provided by Patchwork Press via Netgalley in exchange for a review! (Thank you!)*

Published: June 17th 2014

Synopsis: It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea...

Annaleigh Wells and William Calloway had a love even the angels envied. It was as if the universe spun them toward one another, like the stars crafted their souls to fit perfectly together. With a wedding on the horizon, fate had a change of heart. Whispered warnings from phantoms and morbid nightmares darkened every night—but even visions of the future couldn’t save Annaleigh. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem Annabel Lee, Crouch’s period romance Madly, Deeply tells the tale of love so great, it cannot be contained in just one life.

Review:

What first attracted me to Madly, Deeply is that it is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem Annabel Lee, a poem which I have always loved. It struck me as a really amazing idea to write a novel based on a such a vivid, dark poem and I couldn't wait to get stuck in and see how Erica Crouch would weave the themes of the poem into a novel.

Madly, Deeply centres around characters Annaleigh and William, who we meet at the very height of their relationship when they are deeply in love and desperate to get married. Of course, things do not quite work out as they had always planned. I loved all of their interactions as their dialogue always flowed well, and Crouch gave just enough backstory without dumping information on the reader. As we come into the story they are established as a couple, so I was glad that they knew each other so clearly that it was easier for me as a reader to get to know them both individually through each other's eyes. 

Before reading I wasn't entirely sure what the main themes in the novel would be exactly even though I had a good idea about it due to Annabel Lee. I was swept along with the well-paced flow of the story and I loved Crouch's writing, which was imaginative and beautifully descriptive. Reading some parts in the dark seriously gave me goosebumps. I loved the descriptions of the setting, the huge house and the eerie lake, the extravagant gowns and the grounds of the house. A favourite quote of mine was a description of William's sister Mary – "She was always glowing, as if she had stolen the stars from the night sky and swallowed them whole, wanting to shine from within."

My only criticism of the book is not really a criticism but just how I felt reading the second half. The story is extremely sad and heart-wrenching and at times it felt like there was no moments of breathing space from that. As the characters were consumed with grief, so was the novel. As I said, it's not really a criticism because of course sometimes there is no freedom from grief and Crouch did portray  the stages of grief very well, not romanticising loss but instead exploring ways for her characters to get through it – and the guilt that comes with getting through it. I especially loved this paragraph about grief:

"The anguish of grief, it turned out, did not lessen once acknowledged. It wasn't as easy as a scraped knee, where a good cry would distract from the pain until the weeping stopped and the cut was bandaged. Once you touched it, grief only grew. It took on more, swallowed you whole until that's all there was. Grief was an egotistical emotion, unsatisfied until it became the only thing a person knew, the only thing they could see."

I loved Madly, Deeply, especially the beautiful writing style and imagery, as well as the three main characters, Annaleigh, William, and Mary, who I liked individually for their own personalities. I also really enjoyed the supernatural elements and thought it brought an interesting next level for the grief suffered by the characters.

 I would definitely recommend Madly, Deeply for anyone, but especially for fans of darker emotional romances such as Wuthering Heights, and of course fans of Edgar Allan Poe!

Have you read Madly, Deeply? What were your thoughts?