This is a really great story. It is a romance, who-done-it, history, and mystery all rolled into one. It beautifully encapsulates the confused emotions of a capable. intelligent, career woman torpedoed by having a child and finding that life now revolves 100% round the baby girl and her imperative needs. Then there is the inevitable conflict between the heroine Caro and her two mothers-in-law. One, despite herself, turns into her own mother, while struggling to maintain the crumbling Kelly Castle, the other, 75 years earlier was really a rather nasty character. There is all the subtle twists and turns of difficult relationships between a wife and her mother in law which is over the head of a busy husband.
The chapters oscillate between 1874 and 1949 with each twisting thread building the mystery and developments leading to the crescendo with all the skilful and smooth twirls that Elisabeth Gifford specialises in. The link between the two is that Caro is at Kelly castle, a dilapidated and run down ancestral home, tied up with looking after her baby and missing some intellectual stimulus. Her mother in law persuades her to look into the family archives and discover some ancient secrets. This opens up a whole world of mystery and interest. That includes an ancient skeleton in the grounds of the castle - why was it buried here? Why not in a graveyard?
The subtle differences between the two periods in history, especially the social attitudes, are very well portrayed, and are all part of the skilful plot.
There is great depth of detail about the whaling ship experience and life with the Inuits in Northern Canada, and the industry in Dundee at that time, which reveals a lot of careful research.
In a book where chapters keep switching forward and back over the centuries, it can be tiring or disorientating, but this book has mastered the knack of doing this with great fluidity.
This is a book that I’m sure will appeal widely, you really become immersed in the whole deepening plot. A masterpiece of story telling.
The chapters oscillate between 1874 and 1949 with each twisting thread building the mystery and developments leading to the crescendo with all the skilful and smooth twirls that Elisabeth Gifford specialises in. The link between the two is that Caro is at Kelly castle, a dilapidated and run down ancestral home, tied up with looking after her baby and missing some intellectual stimulus. Her mother in law persuades her to look into the family archives and discover some ancient secrets. This opens up a whole world of mystery and interest. That includes an ancient skeleton in the grounds of the castle - why was it buried here? Why not in a graveyard?
The subtle differences between the two periods in history, especially the social attitudes, are very well portrayed, and are all part of the skilful plot.
There is great depth of detail about the whaling ship experience and life with the Inuits in Northern Canada, and the industry in Dundee at that time, which reveals a lot of careful research.
In a book where chapters keep switching forward and back over the centuries, it can be tiring or disorientating, but this book has mastered the knack of doing this with great fluidity.
This is a book that I’m sure will appeal widely, you really become immersed in the whole deepening plot. A masterpiece of story telling.