🌠🌠 It's the first of the month and time for my featured book 🌠🌠
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| Penguin Michael Joseph 14 May 2020 My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book |
Outside a remote manor house in an idyllic wood, a baby girl is found.
The Harrington family takes her in and disbelief quickly turns to joy. They're grieving a terrible tragedy of their own and the beautiful baby fills them with hope, lighting up the house's dark, dusty corners. Desperate not to lose her to the authorities, they keep her secret, suspended in a blissful summer world where normal rules of behaviour - and the law - don't seem to apply.
But within days a body will lie dead in the grounds. And their dreams of a perfect family will shatter like glass.
Years later, the truth will need to be put back together again, piece by piece . . .
From the author of Black Rabbit Hall, The Glass House is a emotional, thrilling book about family secrets and belonging - and how we find ourselves when we are most lost.
What did I think about it..
In 1971, after a devastating tragedy, the Harrington family move out of London to live at Foxcote Manor, their remote and rather dilapidated country home on the edge of the Forest of Dean. Together with their nanny, Big Rita, the children, Hera and Teddy, run wild in the woods, allowing their mother, Jeannie, time to come to terms with her own particular sadness. However, there are just too many secrets waiting to be exposed, especially when an unexpected discovery threatens everyone's peace of mind.
In present day London, Sylvie is adapting to an entirely new way of life when she receives the devastating news that her mother has had a terrible accident. The consequences of which will alter the course of Sylvie's life and will send her searching for clues about her past which have been buried for far too long.
The Glass House is wonderfully atmospheric, conjuring the dark oppressive nature of Foxcote Manor to perfection. The house on the edge of the dark, dark woods comes creepily alive and throughout the story there's a lingering sense of dread, not in a haunting way, but with a growing sense of impending doom that all is going to go badly wrong for the Harrington family. The family nanny, Big Rita, was, by far, my favourite character, she is such a fascinating enigma, and the linchpin around which the story turns and tumbles.
The modern day story is no less fascinating than its 1971 companion as both time periods are captured to perfection. I really liked the modern day Sylvie and found her search for the truth entirely believable, and so poignant, as her search starts to uncover secrets which should have been exposed years ago. Sylvie's troubled relationship with her daughter, Annie, adds an interesting dimension, continuing the theme of families in a very modern way.
The Glass House is a beautifully written family mystery which slips effortlessly between two time frames which are just far enough apart for the revelation, when it comes, to still be quite shocking.
Eve Chase is the author of Black Rabbit Hall and The Wildling Sisters, and the pseudonym of journalist and novelist Polly Williams. She lives in Oxford, England with her husband and three children.
Twitter @EvePollyChase
@MichaelJBooks @PenguinBooksUK
@MichaelJBooks @PenguinBooksUK
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