What happens when the person controlling your fortune is also the person you're being forced to marry? And what if that person is, you know, a literal murderer?
I was finishing up a logo project at 2 AM, Frida curled on my keyboard (helpful as always), when I decided I needed something short to get me through the final tweaks. Miss or Mrs? popped up and honestly? The title alone had me curious. Such a Victorian way to frame a woman's entire identity crisis in three words.
The Velvet Trap of Victorian Romance
Look, I went in expecting a quaint little love story with some light drama. Maybe some fainting, definitely some corsets, probably someone getting the vapors. What I got instead was Natalie Graybrooke—young, in love with her cousin Launcelot (yes, that name, I know), and trapped in an engagement to a man who makes my skin crawl.
Mr. Turlington is the kind of villain who doesn't need a mustache to twirl. He's cold, calculating, and obsessed with Natalie's fortune in a way that feels genuinely unsettling. When Natalie secretly marries her cousin to escape him, Turlington's response is to... arrange her father's murder. Just casually decides to become a murderer. The escalation had me pausing my work like, excuse me, sir?
Wilkie Collins doesn't waste time. At three and a half hours, this novella moves. The tension builds in this sneaky way where you think you're reading a romance and suddenly you're in a thriller. Abuela would have been clutching her rosary AND yelling at the screen. She loved a good villain she could hate.
Christine Dufour's Quiet Magic
Here's where I got genuinely surprised. I didn't know Christine Dufour's work before this, and I couldn't find a ton about her online. But based on this performance? She gets it.
Her voice has this clarity that makes Victorian prose feel accessible without modernizing it too much. She's not doing over-the-top dramatic readings—it's more like she trusts the material to do the heavy lifting and just... guides you through. Her Turlington is restrained in this way that makes him creepier. No cartoon villain energy. Just cold, measured menace. That understated approach reminded me of the villain in Paris Rose—sometimes the scariest antagonists are the ones who don't need to raise their voice.
The pacing is chef's kiss. She knows when to let a moment breathe and when to push forward. There's this section where the secret marriage is discovered and the tension in her delivery had me holding my breath over my tablet. My cats noticed. They judged.
Old-Fashioned in the Best Way
Okay, real talk: this story is old-fashioned. Like, obviously. It's from the 1870s. Natalie is young—younger than feels comfortable by modern standards—and the whole cousin-marriage thing is very much of its time. If that's going to pull you out of the story, fair enough.
But there's something about how Collins writes women's limited choices that still hits. Natalie isn't passive. She's strategic within her tiny cage of options. She finds a way out, even when every man around her is treating her like property. The romance isn't the swoony kind I usually cry over, but there's something deeply satisfying about watching her refuse to be a victim. Promise gave me that same satisfaction—a heroine working within impossible constraints and still finding her agency.
I didn't ugly-cry (my spreadsheet remains at 47 for the year), but I did feel a tightness in my chest during the climax. That counts for something.
Who This Is (and Isn't) For
This is a rainy Sunday book. Or a late-night-finishing-a-project book. Something short and propulsive that doesn't require you to remember seventeen character names.
Best for: anyone who loves Victorian sensation novels, Wilkie Collins completists, or people who want a quick palette cleanser between longer listens. The vibes are gothic-lite with genuine suspense.
Maybe skip if: you need modern pacing or contemporary relationship dynamics. Or if cousin marriage is an automatic no. (Valid.)
Frida Approves, and So Do I
The production is clean, Christine Dufour delivers, and at 3.5 hours, it's the perfect length to finish in a day without feeling like a commitment. Not every book needs to wreck me. Sometimes I just want to feel something smaller—that little thrill of a well-crafted story that knows exactly what it is.
This one knew.
