Tag: Reading Challenges

About the Book

1891 Norfolk. After a terrible tragedy, governess Julia Pearlie finds herself with no job, home, or references. When she’s offered a position as companion to Miss Olivia Richmond, her luck appears to be turning. But Mistcoate House is full of secrets.

Olivia has a sinister reputation. The locals call her the Mistcoate Witch, thanks to her tarot readings, and her insistence that she can speak to the dead. Her father, Dr Richmond, believes this to be girlish fantasy and is looking to Julia to put a stop to it.

Determined to prove herself and shake off her own murky history, Julia sets to work trying to help Olivia become a proper young lady. However, as she becomes a fixture at Mistcoate, it is soon clear that there may be more to Olivia’s stories than Dr Richmond would have Julia believe – not least because somehow, Olivia seems to know something of the darkness that Julia desperately hoped she had left behind.

As the danger grows, and the winter chill wraps around the dark woods surrounding Mistcoate, Julia will have to fight to uncover the truth, escape her past – and save herself.

Format: Paperback (350 pages) Publisher: Moonflower Books
Publication date: 12th September 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond on Goodreads

Purchase The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

---

My Review

If your reading taste at this time of the year is for a chilling mystery with a hint of the supernatural then The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond may be just what you’re looking for.

A remote, slightly rundown house surrounded by thick forest, a girl with intensely pale skin who has been largely shut away from the world because she seems able to see glimpses of individuals’ future (or their pasts), a housekeeper who could give Mrs Danvers from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca a run for her money when it comes to sinister malice, and in Julia Pearlie a young woman haunted (literally) by recent tragic events.

There are moments of melodrama, some distinctly unpleasant Victorian attitudes to women, a hint of romance, the obligatory secret diary, and plenty of things to send chills up your spine. ‘A dark figure was creeping across the lawn…When I looked again, the lawn was empty.‘

Each chapter is associated with a different Tarot card and there is a list at the end of the book that gives the meanings of the cards. I confess I didn’t have the time to look back and see their relevance to each chapter’s events.

The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond is the perfect read for a dark October evening, although I suggest you check your doors are locked and your windows closed before settling down to read. Hang on, are you sure that’s a dripping tap and not something more sinister? And what was that scratching sound? Sleep well.

My thanks to Amanda at Moonflower Books for my digital review copy.

In three words: Chilling, suspenseful, intriguing
Try something similar: Bone China by Laura Purcell

---

About the Author

Louise Davidson was born in Belfast and has always worked in the creative arts in some capacity – from assistant to theatre directors to teaching scriptwriting classes in prisons to teaching English and drama to A-Level students. Growing up in Northern Ireland backgrounded by the Troubles led to a fascination with history, and this combined with her love of all things gothic inspired her to write her first book, a dark Victorian thriller set in a neglected and isolated mansion. Louise lives in London with her husband and step-son, and in her spare time is working on fulfilling her ambition to visit every museum in the city. The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond is her debut novel. (Photo: Goodreads author page/Bio: Publisher author page)

Connect with Louise
X | Goodreads

About the Book

In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.

Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor.

One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

Format: Hardcover (400 pages) Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date: 29th August 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Shy Creatures on Goodreads

Purchase Shy Creatures from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

---

My Review

I first heard about this book when I attended a recording of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub at which Clare talked about her previous book, Small Pleasures. That was a book I absolutely loved so I approached Shy Creatures with a mixture of trepidation and high expectation. I needn’t have worried because she has created another wonderful story.

Clare is an author who seems incapable of creating one-dimensional characters. Take Gil, the psychiatrist with whom Helen has been having an affair for the past three years. He’s attractive – and knows it – and the sort of man who can’t help playing on it. He’s cheating on his wife and is rather economical with the truth when it comes to the state of his marriage. Sounds a bit of a cad, doesn’t he? But the elements of his character that make him so charismatic make him a psychiatrist who can create a real connection with his patients. And he has a more enlightened attitude to treating mental illness than many of his peers, believing talking therapy is more effective than filling them up with drugs. It’s why he championed Helen’s art therapy as a legitimate form of treatment although, of course, he may have had secondary motives as well.

Helen is wrapped up in an affair that she finds hard to leave behind yet knows is wrong. She’s fairly clear-eyed that she and Gil view things differently. ‘She realised that, for Gil, intensity had always been more important than permanence, whereas she had wanted something lasting’. Yet a shock discovery still takes her by surprise. I really liked Helen. I admired her patience, her openmindness and the empathy she shows towards her patients, many of whom have been written off by society.

Small Pleasures was set in the 1950s, whereas Shy Creatures takes us forward to 1964. It’s a time of change, including in the attitude to the treatment of mental illness with the first glimpses of the idea of care in the community rather than shutting people away in asylums. As always, the author brilliantly evokes the period through the food people eat, the films and television programmes they watch.

As the author reveals, the character of William is inspired by a true story but she has given his story an entirely different trajectory to the real life case. Cleverly, it unfolds in reverse chronological order so it’s only towards the end of the book that we learn the reason why William was kept away from the world for so many years. Although born out of love and a desire to protect him from the risk of discovery, his isolation has had a profound impact on him not just physically but psychologically.

Discovering he has a talent for drawing, Helen sets out to help him return to the outside world through the medium of art. It’s a slow process. At the same time, she starts to delve into his past seeking anyone who can shed light on his story. What she discovers is something dark but it also results in an entirely unexpected act of generosity that is in effect repayment of a debt.

Small Pleasures ended with a tragedy. (That’s not a spoiler as it’s revealed in the opening pages.) In comparison, although nothing is spelled out, the final chapter of Shy Creatures left me with a feeling of hope.

In three words: Moving, insightful, tender
Try something similar: The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

---

About the Author

Clare Chambers is the author of ten novels. Small Pleasures, published in 2020, was her first work of fiction in ten years and became a word-of-mouth hit on publication. It was selected for BBC2 Between the Covers book club and for Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, and was chosen as Book of the Year by The Times, the Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Metro, Red and Good Housekeeping. Small Pleasures also won Pageturner of the Year Award at the British Book Awards and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Clare Chambers lives in Kent.

Connect with Clare
Goodreads | X