I loved this book.
Margaret Lea is a sometime biographer and fulltime bibliophile, who receives a summons to write the biography of elusive author Vida Winter. Nobody has ever been able to get the true story of Miss Winter’s life before, and her past has always been shrouded in mystery.
Margaret sets out on her task with some trepidation, and learns the history of Angelfield house, and the Angelfield family – Isabelle, Charlie, Adeline and Emmeline. Their story is one with lots of twists and turns, where nothing is quite what it seems.
Margaret finds herself becoming more and more drawn into Vida Winter’s life story, which resonates with her own.
The characters – especially those of Margaret, Adeline and Emmeline – are well drawn and fully fleshed out. The writing is love, infusing the story has a sense of tension – and I could not have begun to guess how it would end!
Beautifully written, this is a gothic tale of family history, and the tangled webs people weave. I thought that reading it would be something of a chore, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Wonderful!
