Publication Date: 27th June
Formats: Hardback & Ebook
Price: Hb £16.99/ Ebook £7.99
Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph
I would like to say a huge thank you to Frankie Banks and Michael Joseph for not only organising such a wonderful tour but also for allowing me to read and review a physical proof copy of this intriguing book. I would also like to say a huge thank you to the creative talent, Eve Chase, for creating such an intriguing and captivating novel which held me and will hold you spellbound. Intrigued? Let’s head to the blurb and find out a bit more.
Notting Hill, London. One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker’s mother walks out of their front door and doesn’t return.
With her little brother in tow, desperate to find her mother, Maggie is drawn into the labyrinthine world of antiques and shadowy figures. There she befriends someone else living on their wits. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance?
Twenty-one years later, in a Parisian apartment, Maggie’s phone rings and her hard won grown up life shatters. While, in London, the new owner of the Parker’s old house is excavating the basement, unaware of what might lie beneath.
This book will ensnare you and captivate you in equal measure, it’s both enchanting, compelling and emotional. You follow both the past and the present to see the links between certain characters but also how devastating a loss of a parent can be to a family that at the time were barely hanging on to each other.
We follow Maggie the elder of the two siblings who, before the tragedy that is about to happen is experiencing boredom and teenage angst against the only adult who matters to them (plus all her mother’s friends ofc) that is until after what happens and she finds both her and her brother cast adrift with no other family and are sent off to stay with an aunt that tries to give them structure and a home.
Throughout it all, Maggie develops a friendship with some one who is also willing to help her find out what happens but then something happens that soon threatens everything that she thought she knew and also a deadly secret which lies beneath a basement that is about to be discovered. I promise there won’t be any spoilers, what I loved about this wonderful novel is the way in which you are shown snapshots of the past and the present and in each little glimpse there are tiny hints and clues as to what, Maggie, family and close friends find out. I love the element of mystery and a will they won’t they sort of romance. But really it’s Maggie trying to work out what actually happened the day her mother walked out and why she did that? It’s about loss, betrayal, secrets and mysteries all interconnected in family and their histories.
This is a magical and enchanting novel and would highly recommend this for anyone looking for a captivating read this summer.
Ratings: 5 🌟s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰
Author’s Blurb:
Eve Chase is an internationally bestselling British novelist who writes rich, layered and suspenseful novels, thick with secrets, unforgettable characters and settings. Her latest novel, The Midnight Hour – ‘Her best yet…I loved every word’ – Claire Douglas – publishes June ’24, in the UK. Other novels include, The Birdcage, The Glass House (The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, US) a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde (The Wildling Sisters, US) which was longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, and Black Rabbit Hall, winner of Paris’ Saint-Maur en Poche prize for Best Foreign Fiction. She works in the Writer’s Shed at the bottom of her garden, usually with Harry, her golden retriever.
I hope you have enjoyed this compelling novel into what lies behind a family mystery and how secrets can never lie buried for long. If you are looking for a copy, you can pre-order from Waterstones, any independent store and of course on Amazon. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you soon!!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 