Saturday 2 November 2013

A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore.

A Place of Secrets

From Goodreads

The night before it all begins, Jude has the dream again...

Can dreams be passed down through families? As a child Jude suffered a recurrent nightmare: running through a dark forest, crying for her mother. Now her six-year-old niece, Summer, is having the same dream, and Jude is frightened for her.

A successful auctioneer, Jude is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband. When she's asked to value a collection of scientific instruments and manuscripts belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely 18th-century astronomer, she leaps at the chance to escape London for the untamed beauty of Norfolk, where she grew up.

As Jude untangles Wickham's tragic story, she discovers threatening links to the present. What have Summer's nightmares to do with Starbrough folly, the eerie crumbling tower in the woods from which Wickham and his adopted daughter Esther once viewed the night sky? With the help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude searches for answers in the wild, haunting splendour of the Norfolk forests. Dare she leave behind the sadness in her own life and learn to love again?


My review

This was one of my choices for an online Reading group that I'm in and as it won the most votes it became the October read.

I've not read any of Rachel Hore's books before but I've got at least another one if not more sat on my TBR, which I'm looking forward to reading if it's as good as this one was.

The story links several storyline strands together and whilst some of it can be guessed at before they come together, others are less evident.  With a cast of strong female characters this story weaves together several time periods and secrets that will keep you entertained along the way.

With romance, a great house, history, mystery and some star gazing thrown in this book has something for everyone.  I fell in love with young Summer, Jude's niece and feel that she did kind of steal the story for me a little and became quite instrumental to one of the storylines.

This was a well written story but perhaps a little over long if I'm to criticise it at all.

I gave it 4* (8/10).

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