The Glass Woman

“The Glass Woman” is a tense gothic thriller that inherits Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” and Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” The novel takes place in Iceland, on land steeped in the spirit of ancient sagas, during witch hunts. It is 1686. Rowse is the daughter of a bishop who taught her literacy: she can read the Bible and psalms, but at night—like her mother—she whispers to pagan gods. The family is poor, yet happy, until her father dies. Then, so her mother doesn’t simply perish from the brutal winter’s cold and hunger, the girl marries and leaves far from her native nest. Her husband, Jown, is stern and withdrawn; he is almost never at home. Rowse must be meek and obedient, and she may not go out or make friends in the village. Or is it because the locals know what happened to Jown’s previous wife? The most ominous rumors circle around her death. Rowse remains in total isolation and despair as the shadows of the empty house thicken around her, and from the locked attic—where she is strictly forbidden to go—strange sounds come…