Gothics! Yes!
I've been a tremendous fan of Joan Aiken's Gothic novels since I first moved from the children's room of the library to the adult section, where I started with A and grabbed all the books I could find from that name I knew and loved. Mary Stewart, it turns out, wrote the novels that Joan Aiken loved. I recognized many elements in this book from Aiken's work, though you might need my encyclopedic knowledge to catch them. The long one lane zigzag road appears in Last Movement. The near-accident with the car appears in The Crystal Crow. The entire set-up of the novel can be seen reflected in my favorite of Aiken's books, A Cluster of Separate Sparks. Each of these is too similar in detail and ambience to be anything but loving homage. Although I've loved Aiken's Gothics my whole life--The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Midnight Is a Place are both clearly Gothics for children--I've never really followed that logical trail and read other authors in the genre...