The Burial Plot Review

Blaming my current sleeplessness on Elizabeth Macneal herself

Elizabeth MacNeal is back! Creepy historical fiction! Her narratives disturb me so much. I love it. I am patiently waiting for her to disturb me again.

Bonnie has escaped a toxic situation and has made a life for herself in London only to be thrown into peril again when a man tries to assault her and she accidentally kills him. She escapes to the country to work as a lady’s maid to the daughter of a recently widowed man and lays low, but she feels unsettled by the situation. Did her employer’s late wife die in an accident as reported or something more sinister? Does Bonnie see strange familiarities in her new setting or is she simply haunted by her own dark past?

It becomes clear someone is hiding something from her, but what and why? Bonnie gets sucked into the design and building of a cemetery and burial to honor her employer’s late wife. The entire atmosphere of the narrative is deeply unsettling. Bonnie never knows peace, reminiscent of a du Maurier heroine. It is clear that there is a mystery to unravel at the heart of the house, but the nature of the mystery is part of the puzzle.

The plot points surrounding the Moncrieff house, the disturbed wife, the depressed daughter, and the lost man at the head of the household evoke themes from The Crimson Petal and the White, but the characters and plot structure are very different outside of these elements. The general sense of foreboding carries over, however, and fans of The Crimson Petal and the White would enjoy The Burial Plot, as well as Daphne du Maurier fans, especially ones of Frenchman’s Creek.