The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray
Described as “Lemony Snicket meets Oscar Wilde meets Edgar Allan Poe,” this supernatural adventure for middle-grade readers is not quite witty or gothic enough to live up to its billing.
Set in an approximate version of 1901 London, the story of Bryony Gray’s discovery of her family ties to the Dorian of Wilde’s horror tale offers plenty of potentially entertaining elements: an artistic prodigy, a family of cheerful morticians, costume balls, and anachronistically positive references to same-sex affections. The novel’s premise is that Bryony has inherited a version of her father Dorian’s curse, in which the portraits she paints come to life and terrorize their subjects. With few resources aside from stubbornness and skill with a paintbrush, she plots to escape her evil guardians and find her mysterious Patron.
The friends she makes in her quest seem to come from The Importance of Being Earnest by way of the Addams family, and the cityscape they criss-cross in frantic search of a cure for the curse is similarly a mishmash of Edwardian and modern. Young readers will be charmed by the cheeky dialogue, but may wish for more character interaction and less dashing around; older readers may become frustrated by the inconsistent tone and slapdash approach to historical detail.
