This women's fiction tale mixes complex patterns from historical and modern times. To start we see a montage of seventeenth century scenes relating to a large freshwater pearl and a Murano glass mirror, owned by British royalty. But in modern day, a woman is woken by her young niece on the phone, saying that her father Ben is missing. Holly Ansell, a glass engraver, naturally gets up and goes to the child, who is in the family holiday home in Oxfordshire. Next day the little girl's mother arrives, fuming at having her work interrupted, but there is still no sign of Ben.

HOUSE OF SHADOWS then switches back to the Winter Queen, Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, sister of Charles I, and wife of Frederick of Bohemia, who had a turbulent life and lived with her husband in exile. The pearl and mirror had passed down to her, and with them membership of a secretive cult called Fellowship of the Rosy Cross... and a curse. A quick Google search will bring up a timeline of this lady's life which will help reduce any confusion. In present day, Holly attends a meeting in Ben's place at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, looking at an exhibition about the Winter Queen. By now she fears something tragic has happened to her brother. The police are not interested yet; grown men sometimes go off for a few days. Holly continues following clues to burnt-down historic Ashtown House near the holiday home. If Ben has found the pearl, perhaps he has also met the curse.

At the very least this book will have you Googling for paintings of the Winter Queen and her clothes and jewels, so the fiction is keeping her memory alive. Another fiction within the tale is a diary of a courtesan, quite scandalous, which contributes to making HOUSE OF SHADOWS an adult read. Nicola Cornick has clearly had a good time merging all these patterns - the courtesan, the Rosicrucians, European nobility, and British treacheries - adding a missing person, a handsome estate restorer Mark Warner, and a curious and lonely glass-worker, in a tale you won't easily forget. As we see patterns repeating through time and people seemingly destined for love and loss, it's hard to know which of the time periods feels most real. The tragedies associated with the mirror and pearl, perhaps explained as coincidences, will cast a shiver down your spine. I love the majestic sweep and intimate storytelling, and I strongly recommend HOUSE OF SHADOWS.