Turning the Screw…. Florence & Giles is an intriguing Gothic tale, well thought-out and deftly plotted. It owes much of its inspiration to Henry James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and is a tribute to that classic story of misguided and obsessive madness. Set in remote and crumbling New England mansion, twelve-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from any formal education as her absent uncle has strong opinions on the dangers of a clever woman. Ignored by the minimal staff of the house and left to her own devices, she finds the abandoned library, teaches herself to read and devours books in secret – she appears a resourceful and intelligent young heroine. Keeping her self-taught accomplishments a secret from all, she considers them her own personal triumph, seeing herself as literary and articulate against all the odds. She insists on narrating her own story in a language of her own invention. This contrived language is a little awkward to get used to. Her insistence on turning nouns and adjectives to verbs and verbs to nouns “no budgery was to be had. I was in a weepery of frustration” – can rather grate and irritate at first, but…