I didn't get as far into the excerpt as I hoped, last night, but here are my first impressions:
So far, JD, it does not seem to be Victorian Gothic in even the broadest, most liberal sense of the term. The style of narrative suggests a Comedy of Manners. (But for that to work the author needs to know the milieu he/she is satirizing, inside and out, and so far it looks like he doesn't. If he means to combine CoM with 19th century Gothic, I would suggest a course of Thomas Love Peacock.)
The first pages are full of trivialites about Miss Temple's life and her previous relationship with the man who has just jilted her. Then comes a sequence on a strangely empty train, where she discovers that the (very few) passengers are all wearing masks. This could be seriously disquieting, but the way it is handled, it isn't. It just comes across as odd. And any uneasiness the reader might feel (recognizing, as Miss Temple does not, that this can't be right) is diluted by a lengthy scene of a sedate ride in a coach, during which the occupants exchange vacuous pleasantries, until Miss Temple -- inexcusably, one can't help thinking, considering the very slight provocation -- pokes one of the other women in the eyes.
Perhaps things will start to feel creepier when they reach their destination. In the meantime, I can't help thinking how Le Fanu, or Stoker, or Collins, or Gaskell would have handled the train ride, investing the whole thing with a menacing atmosphere. And I've now realized why so many authors of Victorian ghost stories and novels of Gothic suspense chose protagonists who were high-strung artistic types, or students or businessmen just recovering from nervous breakdowns due to too much studying or overwork -- such characters are keenly sensitive to mood and atmosphere, and the reader is able to experience every thrill of terror along with them. Miss Temple, on the other hand, is self-centered and remarkably oblivious. It may be, of course, that future events will wake her up.
All this is in answer to your question, JD, about about what sort of Victorian Gothic this book is supposed to be. Anyone who doesn't have the same love for 19th century fiction that you and I share is probably skimming this message by now, and wondering who are these writers, Le Fanu, Gaskell, and so forth and why should I care? So I'll move on to something more likely to interest them:
Modern readers, accustomed to the style of contemporary writers, will probably think the narrative of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is far too wordy, and the pace very slow.
But this, too, might improve as the story goes on. The book must have something special about it, to attract so much attention. I'm willing to read the whole sample before I decide whether it's worth my while to pick up the actual book.
