A Most Rapid Fall (BWWM)

Mona Russell willfully keeps her nose in the books. She's an only-child, a misfit, too distant to really be classified as a human being to her parents. Life's that drab series of sighs and eye rolls one usually finds at the start of the romantic comedies, Mona gorged herself on, yet couldn't quite transcribe successfully into her life's plan.
Loathsome and listless, Mona is invited to stay with her estranged grandmother at her home in the mountains where time seems to have have stopped altogether. She can't help wondering what it is that has kept her grandmother in such a dreary state and what exactly it is that's pulling Mona down with her.