📖 Featured Book of the Month ~ The Forgotten Shore by Sarah Maine

Hodder & Stoughton
10 August 2023

My thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

Scotland, 1940. Wounded in action, Archie Maxwell has returned to his family estate of Rosslie. But between the uneasy company of his father's beautiful new wife, and the memories that haunt his nights, he finds the house more of a battleground than a refuge.

Forty years later, Eva Bayne is a journalist looking for a story. Ever since the disappearance of Rosslie's heir during the war, the Maxwells have lived under a shadow - and Eva is drawn to the mystery. Especially when the glimpse of an old photograph stirs up long-buried memories of her childhood in Newfoundland . . .

Could uncovering the truth heal the wounds of Eva's past? And what will it cost for Rosslie to give up its secrets?

📖 My Review..

Wounded whilst on active service in 1940, Archie Maxwell returns to his family home in Scotland to convalesce however, with his nightmares haunting his sleep, Archie finds little solace and is often belligerent with those who seek to help him recuperate. Archie's tempestuous relationship with his father's new wife only adds to the uneasy atmosphere which pervades Rosslie House.

Forty years later, journalist, Eva Bayne finds that her childhood memories of living in Newfoundland have been triggered by a glimpse of an old photograph which brings back memories she thought she had forgotten. Intrigued by these memories Eva is determined to uncover the past which reveals far more long buried secrets.

This beautifully evocative story takes us from the wilds of a Scottish ancestral home, to the cloistered and rather forbidding atmosphere of the Newfoundland coast and does so with a detailed imagining of what it was like to live through two very different time frames.  The author brings both to life so well that I was equally comfortable reading of Archie's recuperation at Rosslie as I was spending time with Eva during her unusual childhood living at Heart's Repose in 1966.

The Forgotten Shore is an emotional and thought provoking read about the long buried hurt which people carry with them and the inevitability of the shedding of secrets which if left too long can fester and destroy. I was captivated by this story which is why I have no hesitation in making it my Featured Book of the Month for September as it's a perfect autumnal read.

 

About the Author

Sarah Maine was born in England and emigrated to Canada with her family at the age of ten. A small northern Ontario community was home for the next two years before the family moved south, and Sarah went to high school in Toronto. She returned to England to study archaeology, stayed on to do research and work, married there and has two sons.

Books were always important. She grew up on a diet of Arthur Ransome and Robert Louis Stevenson but also the classics, Jane Austen and the Brontés and, of course, Daphne du Maurier - but now enjoys a wide range of contemporary fiction.

Twitter@sarahmainebooks #TheForgottenShore

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