With Lord Frederick spending much of his time hunting and mysteriously disappearing once a month and the young, frivolous newlywed Lady Constance in charge, Penelope faces challenges far beyond taming the feral children. The orphan, Miss Penelope Lumley who knows that her family must be out there somewhere, has made the most of her time at the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females and goes on to make the most of her time at Ashton Place where she finds her three charges living in a barn, only recently having been captured in the nearby forest where they were seemingly raised by wolves.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 1: The Mysterious Howling is rich with parodic humor throughout, which, as with Snicket's books, will probably be lost on most readers but should not lessen the enjoyment. Wells while humorously illustrating a point, calls to mind the narrator of the Series of Unfortunate Events. The omniscient narrator is clearly of our time, occasionally inserting anachronistic commentary about roller coasters, cardiovascular fitness, lottery winners and the future writing of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wood sets her series of books squarely in the time period of Jane Eyre, with fifteen year old orphan and graduate of a girl's school who applies for the position of governess at the grand manor, Ashton Place. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 1: The Mysterious Howling, which has been compared to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events also owes a nod to Joan Aiken's classic, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

The mysterious howling book