Tag: ARCAugust

#BookReview The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks @DoubledayUK @izzieghaffari

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The-Whispering-House-blog-tour-week-1I’m delighted to welcome you to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks. Not only is it the first day of the tour, it’s also publication day! My thanks to Izzie at Doubleday for inviting me to participate in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

The Whispering HouseAbout the Book

Freya Lyell is struggling to move on from her sister Stella’s suicide five years ago. Visiting the bewitching Byrne Hall, only a few miles from the scene of the tragedy, she discovers a portrait of Stella – a portrait she had no idea existed, in a house Stella never set foot in. Or so she thought.

Driven to find out more about her sister’s secrets, Freya is drawn into the world of Byrne Hall and its owners: charismatic artist Cory and his sinister, watchful mother. But as Freya’s relationship with Cory crosses the line into obsession, the darkness behind the locked doors of Byrne Hall threatens to spill out.

Format: Hardcover (352 pages)       Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 6th August 2020 Genre: Fiction, Mystery

Find The Whispering House on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

There’s no doubt that in Byrne Hall the author has created another mysterious location for her novel. Viewed for the first time from its gardens, as Freya does, or glimpsed from afar, it seems picture perfect. “There it was; there was Byrne Hall. Impossible to mistake the graceful white house with its pillared porch, and the tiered garden tumbling down through the trees like a wide, green river.” However, delve deeper and its elegant frontage is revealed as merely a facade; the rest of the house is in various stages of disuse and decay, “as godforsaken as Sleeping Beauty’s castle”.  This is something of a metaphor for the characters who inhabit it – Diana Byrne and her son, Cory.

Once doyenne of the art world, Diana is now ailing and physically frail, reliant on Cory, the son she dotes on, to look after her. However, through the occasional insights into her thoughts, the reader senses she possesses an inner steel and a strong will. In a curious and rather unsettling way, the house seems to inhabit her as much as she inhabits it. “She – Diana – had become the whispering voice of the house. No, more than that, she had become it’s mind and soul.”

Even Freya begins to think of Byrne Hall as in some sense having a life of its own. “We didn’t get silences like this back home. It was a silence with character and colour; it was the wakeful mind of Byrne Hall, brimful of history and intent.” This air of unreality, along with her desire to find out more about the circumstances of her sister’s death, goes some way to explaining why Freya finds herself drawn into a relationship with Cory. I confess I struggled to see the attraction Cory held for Freya. Convinced he possesses as yet unrecognised artistic talent, his behaviour is increasingly manipulative and controlling. However, having always felt as if she was in her sister’s shadow, Freya finds Cory’s adoration difficult to resist. In addition, Byrne Hall seems to offer her the prospect of a new and more fulfilling life.

As Freya uncovers more connections between Byrne Hall and her sister’s death, picking up fragments here and there, she observes “It was like holding a couple of jigsaw pieces in my palm, knowing there was a whole picture to be made, if only I could find the rest.” You may think you know exactly where the story is going but, like me, you could be wrong. Never underestimate the lengths to which people will go to preserve the things they treasure.

With its atmospheric setting and gothic elements (yes, there is even an attic), The Whispering House combines suspenseful mystery with an absorbing story of delusion and obsession.

In three words: Atmospheric, creepy, immersive

Try something similar: Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks

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Elizabeth Brooks. B+WAbout the Author

Elizabeth Brooks grew up in Chester and read Classics at Cambridge. Her debut novel Call of the Curlew was shortlisted for the Waverton Good Reads award. The setting for her new novel, The Whispering House, is a manor house named Byrne Hall and is inspired by the home of Agatha Christie. It is full of dark corners and old portraits that carry untold stories of their subjects. Elizabeth lives on the Isle of Man with her husband and children.

Connect with Elizabeth
Twitter | Goodreads

 

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#BookReview The Honey and the Sting by E.C. Fremantle @MichaelJBooks

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9780718180508About the Book

Three sisters. Three secrets. Three ways to fall…

England, 1628. Forcibly seduced by the powerful George Villiers, doctor’s daughter Hester is cast aside to raise her son alone and in secret. She hopes never to see Villiers again. Melis’s visions cause disquiet and talk. She sees what other’s can’t – and what has yet to be. She’d be denounced as a witch if Hester wasn’t so carefully protective. Young Hope’s beauty marks her out, drawing unwelcome attention to the family. Yet she cannot always resist others’ advances. And her sisters cannot always be on their guard.

When Villiers decides to claim his son against Hester’s wishes, the sisters find themselves almost friendless and at his mercy. But the women hold a grave secret. The question is, will what they know be their undoing or their salvation? Because in the right hands, a secret is the deadliest weapon of all…

Format: Hardcover (368 pages)       Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 6th August 2020 Genre: Historical fiction

Find The Honey and the Sting on Goodreads

Pre-order/Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

When George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, tries to claim his illegitimate son Rafe from Hester, the young woman he seduced, she and her younger sisters, Hope and Melis, are forced to flee their home and seek safety in a remote house in Shropshire owned by a loyal family friend. It has to be said the group make rather poor fugitives, risking discovery on their journey by discarding their disguises, drawing unnecessary attention to themselves and through Hope’s dangerous naivety.

The story is told in the first person by Hester and in the third person from the point of view of Hope. The thoughts of Melis and the nature of her strange visions and glimpses of the future, remain unknown to the reader making her all the more enigmatic a character.  Her affinity with bees and her keen sense of the presence of danger her sisters would do well to heed.

It becomes clear that Hester has underestimated George Villiers’ determination to possess whatever he desires or the lengths to which he will go to remove the hold she has over him, a secret which could bring about his downfall. When the name of the individual he engages to remove the threat the sisters pose is revealed, those with any knowledge of the history of the period are likely to be as intrigued as me. From this point on, the way the author blends fiction with fact is imaginative and completely compelling.

As the reader discovers, there are more ways to defeat an enemy than may be supposed. “The bees know it – honey and sting – sweetness and sharpness. That is what you need.”

The Honey and the Sting is the third book I’ve read by Elizabeth Fremantle. Although not quite my favourite (that accolade would go to The Poison Bed), it is still an absorbing story that demonstrates the power of maternal love and women’s ability to determine their own futures, with just a touch of the supernatural. (You can read my reviews of The Girl in the Glass Tower and The Poison Bed by following the links from the titles.)

My thanks to Michael Joseph for my advance review copy of The Honey and the Sting via NetGalley.

In three words: Intriguing, imaginative, mystery

Try something similar: Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory

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3k3wyu0L_400x400About the Author

E.C. Fremantle is the critically acclaimed author of The Poison Bed, ‘an electrifying, brilliantly executed thriller,’ and a Times Book of the Year. As Elizabeth Fremantle she has published four Tudor and Elizabethan set novels: Queen’s Gambit, Sisters of Treason, Watch the Lady and The Girl in the Glass Tower. She has contributed to various publications including The Sunday Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. She lives in London.

Connect with Elizabeth
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads