My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Did you ever see the film, The Great Escape, ladies? We’re Steve McQueen and we’ve just jumped over the wire!

Ladywell, it was said, was a place of women; that no man prospered there and that the house itself was hostile to the menfolk, so it became a settled fact in the minds of the townspeople that only an exceptional man would marry happily into the house at Ladywell. That it took an exceptional woman to seize disaster and wallop it into success by sheer force of will was overlooked…

My Review:

Compelling characters and complicated storylines were ingeniously crafted and intricately plotted for a riveting and intriguing read.   I was so caught up in the tale I didn’t dare put my Kindle down for fear something would happen while I was otherwise occupied. This brilliant, puzzling, and mysterious tale involved an unexpected present-day inheritance of house that seemed alive, paternity issues, questionable bloodlines, phantom flowers, immortal hares, healing waters, a well-plotted elder escape, and possible reincarnation of Mrs. Wallis Simpson as a cat. The story was exceptionally well woven and occurred over multiple timelines following the ancestral generations from 4th century AD to the present day; each one well researched and laced together with the complications and proclivities of the issues facing those in their time. I was enthralled, devastated, engrossed, confounded, infested with curiosity, mesmerized, fully engaged, and delightfully entertained by the cleverness of the tale as well as the welcome nips of levity deftly tucked in throughout.