Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

British journalist Wallace's first novel concerns a young Victorian-era woman placed in a private mental asylum by her husband for questionable reasons. Twenty-four year old Anna and priggish Reverend Vincent Palmer have been entered in a mutual marriage of convenience for only seven months when he forcibly installs her at Lake House, a run-down private mental hospital outside London. Anna has provoked her husband by leaving him for five days to tend shipwrecked sailors without telling him beforehand. Does he genuinely think she suffers from hysteria as the asylum's grossly inattentive doctor agrees, or is he simply punishing her for a lack of submission? In either case, while Anna's journey was impulsive and tied to haunting visions she can't escape, she clearly does not deserve to be at Lake House, which offers little in the way of real help for its inmates. Owned by Querios Abse, who lives on-site with his unhappy but oddly sympathetic family, Lake House warehouses women whose families don't know what else to do with them; Anna soon befriends erudite Talitha Batt, whose "insanity" had to do with falling in love with a non-Christian. Anna also befriends Abse's teenage daughter Catherine, who has passions and secrets of her own, and she poses for Dr. Lukas St. Clair, a visiting idealistic who believes photographing patients may lead to a breakthrough in treating mental illness by seeing into their minds. With Catherine's help, Anna escapes Lake House long enough to learn a shocking secret about Vincent, but her sense of responsibility for the adolescent sends her back to Lake House where Abse, in a fit of paternal vengeance--he mistakenly believes Anna has led Catherine astray--comes close to breaking her spirit for good. A decidedly Dickensian flavor infuses the novel, both in style and in emphasis on Victorian social issues, and its lively cast of supporting characters includes caricatures of evil as well as painfully nuanced portrayals of moral complexity. Melodrama that borders on over-ripeness but that can be quite delicious.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* Wallace has found an ideal subject in this story of an impulsive new wife confined to a Victorian asylum against her will one ripe with viscerally appealing drama but also with important implications. Anna Palmer is brought to the asylum after she displeases her husband by rushing off to aid victims of a hurricane. Her actions are strange, and her accounts of visions reveries about Jesus or a mysteriously drowning boy are curious but not pathological. Her confinement and eventual torture in the name of treatment threaten to drive her legitimately out of her mind, however. Outside perspective on Anna and the psychiatric discipline is provided by Lucas St. Clair, a young doctor investigating the use of photography as a method of treatment and diagnosis, whose encounters with Anna leave him doubting his profession. Wallace dips into the lives of women around Anna as well her keeper's wife and daughter, her husband's mistress, her fellow inmates to achieve a subtle and well-considered appraisal of the restricted nature of women's lives in this period and the circumstantial and psychological effects thereof.--Kinney, Meg Copyright 2010 Booklist

Publishers Weekly
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Journalist Wallace's first foray into book-length fiction (after the nonfiction Oranges and Lemons: Life in an Inner City Primary School) is a haunting look at women's asylums in 1850s England. Inciting her new husband's wrath by departing unannounced to help the survivors of a shipwreck, Anna Palmer has been sent to Lake House, within whose shabby confines she cycles through disbelief, denial, and anger. Home to a spectrum of women ranging from the truly deranged to the sane, the asylum subjects Anna to a horrendous array of treatments for her "hysteria," including torture, diuretics, and emetics. As Anna's mental state is toyed with by the staff, both the reader and Anna must question the boundaries of sanity. Filling out the story are Dr. Lucas St. Clair, who believes that the ability to see patients in two dimensions (a phenomenon afforded by the recent advent of photography) might hold the key to diagnoses, and Querios Abse, owner of Lake House, whose daughter may also suffer from mental illness. Wallace masterfully creates an atmosphere of utter claustrophobia and dread, intermingled with the ever-present horror of the reality of women's minimal rights in the 19th century. Agent: Ivan Mulcahy, Mulcahy Conway Associates. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
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The often harrowing world of Victorian mental asylums serves as the backdrop for this first novel from award-winning journalist and nonfiction writer Wallace (Oranges and Lemons). Newlywed Anna Palmer is committed to the isolated Lake House against her will after making a series of impulsive decisions that anger her clergyman husband. Failing to convince the authorities there of her sanity, Anna enlists the proprietor's young daughter as her ally in her desperate escape attempt. As complications arise, she realizes she has greatly underestimated the amount of danger she faces. Verdict Wallace rushes through the melodramatic climax to her tale and leaves many of her most interesting characters underdeveloped, particularly Lucas St. Clair, a young doctor who believes he can diagnose mental disorders through photography. The novel is well researched, however, and its exploration of 19th-century attitudes toward and treatment of the mentally ill could appeal to historical fiction readers who enjoyed similarly themed novels such as Megan Chance's An Inconvenient Wife or Kathy Hepinstall's recent Blue Asylum.-Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.