Author: Nicola Cornick
Pub. Date: 17-Oct-2017
Rating: 5 Stars
House of Shadows by Nicola Cornick is a wonderful, fictional story that has been skillfully woven into and around English history. The story line was rather complex as the reader is actually following three separate time lines, one in the 17th century, the 19th and the present.
The story opens on the death bed of Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, as she implorers William Craven, the First Earl of Craven her faithful and devoted cavalier, to destroy a pearl and a jeweled mirror that she believed had wrought havoc in her family. The story then leaps forward to the present when Holly gets a call in the middle of the night from her niece saying her father, Holly’s brother, is missing.
Holly rushes, from London, to her niece’s side at the country home Ben, her brother, and herself own jointly. Once Holly arrives the police only make a perfunctory effort to find Ben preferring to believe he will just turn up. Holly knows Ben is a good person; he would never just up and leave his daughter. Therefore, Holly is left to her own devises to discover what happened.
Ben was researching their family history and Holly has a gut feeling that his research is connected in some way to his disappearance. As she also delves into their family’s past, in an effort to find Ben, she discovers the journal of a young courtesan from the early 19th century named Lavinia whose “protector” was Lord Evershot of Ashdown Park. The very house that used to sit, before it was destroyed in a fire in 1801, close to the mill that is now Holly’s home and workshop. Holly will have to figure out how The Winter Queen, William Craven, Lavinia and Lord Evershot are connected in order to discover what has happened to Ben.
It is an exquisite tale of love, loyalty, betrayal and heart break. I was hooked by the end of the first page. One of my favorite things about the story was the beautiful descriptions of the various settings. I could easily see the grandeur of Ashdown and the surrounding estate when Lord Craven had it built and imagine walking in the wooded park of the present day.
It is obvious that the author knows the English history in detail and it showed in all aspects of the book. For this reason, I believe readers of historical fiction will fall in love with the story, just as I did. Yet, the story is so well written and the characters are so intriguing, I can see where readers of romance will enjoy House of Shadows and maybe even readers of mysteries.
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.