4.5! Wilkie Collins continues to be the Most Fun 19th c. author. His novels are always soooo readable, full of page-turning suspense and scandal and vividly-written characters, from the supremely slimy to the absolute cinnamon rolls. (Basil, you adorable, stupid boy.) His plots are always the most entertaining blend between realistic and lurid - I liked the first two-thirds of this best before it veered into Vengeful Melodrama, but also I'm not gonna turn down a dramatic Cornish cliffside ending. Ever.

I wish the blurb hadn't given away the ~plot twist~ because I would have loved to have pictured myself as a scandalised Victorian reading this as it came out because it's just so juicyyyyyyy.