The blurb:
A pair of young scholars investigate the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story.
Possession is not a book I'd normally pick up, to be honest: the cover of the edition looked terribly earnest, the jacket blurb didn't convince me it was something I'd enjoy reading, and time to read being more rare for me now than it was, I'm pickier about that.
However, Charlie Jane Anders, an author I enjoy, wrote a whole essay on it and that convinced me to at least give it a go, though not without some trepidation.
Turns out I actually really enjoyed it. It's a slower paced book than a lot of the other ones I've been reading and having it in print helped out with keeping going (yay library! Free books!); I don't know that I'd have stuck with it on an e-reader.
At the start, it's very slow-burn and, initially, I didn't click with either or the main characters. Roland is living with a woman he doesn't love in a flat he doesn't like, doing a job he doesn't enjoy; inertia rules his life. Maud's life is less grubby but doesn't have much in the way of forward motion either, though we don't meet her until a few chapters on. That sort of thing can put me off, honestly; I don't demand perfection but characters that passive can be bloody annoying.
However, things do pick up as Roland and Maud set off on their quest to learn more about until-now unsuspected interconnection of their respective literary heroes. They're crossed by antagonists, have lucky discoveries land in their laps and, ultimately, discover something entirely new. The reader, by dint of an omniscient author, gets closure with a little more authority.
The essay linked above is a good exploration of Possession as a forerunner to the whole dark academia genre so I'll refer you there for any exploration of that.
It's a slow novel—the length of time I took to read this is reflective of that, but also of changes I was dealing with in life—but it would make a good read for when you don't have much else on your plate and want to dive into something that recreates a world down to the frayed edges of the carpet.
Started: 1 September 2025
Finished: 29 September 2025
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