Fans of historical fiction with hints of romance and mystery will gravitate to Sarah Maine's THE HOUSE BETWEEN TIDES. Reminiscent of Kate Morton, Katherine Howe and Tatiana de Rosnay, Maine's story crackles with life, strong characters and the necessary secrets. Hetty Deveraux inherits a family mansion in the Outer Hebrides after the death of her grandmother and has plans to build a hotel on the land to escape both London and her current boyfriend. To her dismay, however, the house is in bad shape and not worth rebuilding according to contractor James Cameron. Unsure of James's motives, Hetty plans to move ahead until remains are found under a floorboard.
The story then moves between past and present: intertwining Hetty as she tries to discover to whom the bones belong and Theo Blake, a painter who used to live in the house with his new bride, Beatrice whom he met at a gallery admiring one of his works. The story alternates between Hetty's present-day quest involving James, her boyfriend and the house which has a character all its own. The 1910 storyline involves Theo and Beatrice; the young man, Cameron Forbes who helps Theo with his bird research and hints and memories from their pasts. Maine does an excellent job of detailing life at that time with its glamorous ease, the difference in classes and the strife that difference caused for laborers and women.
Maine is a talented writer and storyteller. It's a book to savor, biting off neat pieces to enjoy as you make your way through the tale. Her prose bristles with vitality, and her details of the birds and landscape of the island bring it to life for the reader. She foreshadows and hints, but one doesn't find out everything until the very end as it should be. Personally, I love stories that balance the contemporary and historical angles, although I generally prefer the historical parts, and this story is no exception. I also have a passion for Scotland, so the book gets higher points for its location as well. If you enjoy historical fiction and mysteries with hints of mystery, you'll enjoy this gem as I did. And, Maine has a novel coming out in 2017 called BEYOND THE WILD RIVER that also tantalizes.
Kate Morton meets Daphne du Maurier in this atmospheric
debut novel about a woman who discovers the century-old
remains of a murder victim on her family’s Scottish estate,
plunging her into an investigation of its mysterious former
occupants.
Following the death of her last living relative, Hetty
Deveraux leaves London and her strained relationship behind
for Muirlan, her ancestral home in Scotland’s Outer
Hebrides. She intends to renovate the ruinous house into a
hotel, but the shocking discovery of human remains brings
her ambitious restoration plans to an abrupt halt before
they even begin. Few physical clues are left to identify the
body, but one thing is certain: this person did not die a
natural death.
Hungry for answers, Hetty discovers that Muirlan was once
the refuge of her distant relative Theo Blake, the acclaimed
painter and naturalist who brought his new bride, Beatrice,
there in 1910. Yet ancient gossip and a handful of leads
reveal that their marriage was far from perfect; Beatrice
eventually vanished from the island, never to return, and
Theo withdrew from society, his paintings becoming
increasingly dark and disturbing.
What happened between them has remained a mystery, but as
Hetty listens to the locals and studies the masterful
paintings produced by Theo during his short-lived marriage,
she uncovers secrets that still reverberate through the
small island community—and will lead her to the identity of
the long-hidden body.
I also enjoy the "historical parts" of a book but this sounds like a great read that pulls the historical and contemporary together. Good review. (Leona Olson 9:20am September 1, 2016)
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