Family Mysteries

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This isn't one of my usual genres but that didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying it, it's a beautifully written story about families, history, secrets, and relationships. Writing with dual timelines can sometimes lead to the reader (or at least me as a reader!) becoming confused, having to keep referring back to the markers to determine which timeline you are reading, but that didn't happen to me once with this book. The characters and settings are so well-drawn that it is always obvious whose story you are currently inside, everyone has their own distinct voice.

Caro has found herself married with a small child and living in the grounds of her husbands family pile in Fife - not exactly the path she saw her life taking. As the first woman to receive a degree from Cambridge, she had hopes of her and Alasdair living in London and working in academia. Instead she is isolated at Kelly Castle, trying to forge a relationship with her mother-in-law, Martha. A project is offered to Caro - work through the family papers to try and uncover who Martha's grandmother was, a woman who seems to have been written out of Gillan history. What Caro finds is a mystery that reaches all the way to the Arctic and which is fabulously laid out in the book.

Most of the main characters are women and the book expertly describes the complexity of female relationships and the strength that women have had to find throughout the ages, there are no swooning femmes here!

The parts of the book that deal with Oliver's expedition on a whaling ship, and the rich passages given to the bleak and imposing landscapes reminded me of the writing in Frankenstein, so it was nice to read a reference to Mary Shelley during the book.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a mystery and reading about real human bonds.