Finders Keepers

An Almost Gothic Love Affair

If you are familiar with the Gothic genre, you will know that elements are a remote setting, normally a castle somewhere in eastern Europe, a damsel in distress, atmospherics linked to fear, supernatural or inexplicable things happening, a powerful, tyrannical male having control of the woman, omens, curses, madness, etc..

For more details on the Gothic novel, go here 

Finders Keepers has most of those elements, the striking difference being that the story is set in the Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa in the year 1749.
A young bride is sent off on her own with only her coachman for protection into the unknown to marry a man who is little more than a stranger to her. After an arduous journey, she arrives at her destination in the midst of a thunderstorm to dead man’s door – that is, until a man thunders into the courtyard on a horse.
She can be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that this striking-looking man is her betrothed, as he is the only one there, apart from a few servants. Only later that night, in the deep gloom of the room she is assigned to, she meets another male occupant of the house.
This man walks with difficulty, and despite the gloom, he appears odd – his shoulders aren’t level, his head appearing to sit at an angle on top, and he wears a mask of some sort, which hampers his breathing. And he is undeniably a hunchback.
“Good morning, madam,” he says to her in a grating, husky voice sounding like that of an old man. “I am your husband, Henry Du Pré.”
This is Henry, her Henry? Then who is the beautiful man she met earlier?

Finders Keepers: An Almost Gothic Love Affair is available here:
https://books2read.com/u/bOzMBA