Tall Chimneys by Allie Cresswell

From Goodreads

Winner of the prestigious One Stop Fiction Five Star Book Award, Tall Chimneys is the new novel by Amazon #1 best-selling author Allie Cresswell.

Considered a troublesome burden, Evelyn Talbot is banished by her family to their remote country house. Tall Chimneys is hidden in a damp and gloomy hollow. It is outmoded and inconvenient but Evelyn is determined to save it from the fate of so many stately homes at the time - abandonment or demolition.

Occasional echoes of tumult in the wider world reach their sequestered backwater - the strident cries of political extremists, a furore of royal scandal, rumblings of the European war machine. But their isolated spot seems largely untouched. At times life is hard - little more than survival. At times it feels enchanted, almost outside of time itself. The woman and the house shore each other up - until love comes calling, threatening to pull them asunder.

Her desertion will spell its demise, but saving Tall Chimneys could mean sacrificing her hope for happiness, even sacrificing herself.

A century later, a distant relative crosses the globe to find the house of his ancestors. What he finds in the strange depression of the moor could change the course of his life forever.

One woman, one house, one hundred years.  

My thoughts

Spanning a 100 years this book tells the story of Evelyn Talbot, her family and the remote country family home known as Tall Chimneys.

Evelyn has several siblings and to the family she appears to be somewhat of a burden, it's felt that one way of dealing with her is to send her to Tall Chimneys and so belongs a long and at times frustrating love affair with the house.

The Author has given the house life, it's got a character all of it's own. As Evelyn gets older, she appears to become more and more attached to the house, not wanting to leave the safety that the house gives her. Despite several opportunities along the way, some which she'd rather forget about and put to the back of her mind.

The Author has a way with words and can paint a picture in the readers mind of what the house looks like and the state of repair of it as the years take their toll on it. This is a very well written story that offers the reader so much. The characters are well developed and some you will learn to love, while others you will hate with a passion.

I gave this a very well deserved 5 stars or 10/10 and I am sure this story will make it in to my Best of 2018 reads. I look forward to reading more books by this Author in due course. Thanks to the Author via The Book Club on Facebook for the opportunity to read this story in exchange for an honest review.