#BookReview WILD SPINNING GIRLS by CAROL LOVEKIN

ABOUT THE BOOK

If it wasn’t haunted before she came to live there, after she died, Ty’r Cwmwl made room for her ghost. She brought magic with her.

And the house, having held its breath for years, knew it. Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets out for the Welsh house her father has left her. Ty’r Cwmwl is not at all welcoming despite the fact it looks inhabited, as if someone just left..

It is being cared for as a shrine by the daughter of the last tenant. Determined to scare off her old home’s new landlord, Heather Esyllt Morgan sides with the birds who terrify Ida and plots to evict her. The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time. Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.

PUBLISHED BY  HONNO

PURCHASE LINKS

HONNO SHOP
HIVE.CO.UK
WATERSTONES
WHSMITH

MY REVIEW

This was a haunting and spellbinding read that I savoured from start to finish. It’s a story of grief,the damage secrets can create in a family and was just beautifully written and I was loathed to finish the last page as I didn’t want it to end.

It’s a story of complicated family relationships – Ida is travelling back to Wales to the family home after the loss of her parents, and trying to deal with the emotions of returning to a place where she remembers her mother being very unhappy, whilst trying to deal with her own grief and feeling so alone. Her isolation is disturbed by the appearance of Heather, who is the daughter of the previous tenant, and still sees the house as her own home and a connection to the memories she shared there with her mother.

Both women are very different characters and this causes a clash immediately, and it was absolutely fascinating to see how they both dealt with the grief they’re suffering. While one seems to gain strength from it, the other seems to falter as the more she discovers about the past is revealed.

The house itself plays a big part in the storyline, with its’ setting and the importance it played in these people’s life. They say ‘if walls had ears’ and this house has seen lots going on in the past that it seems that it wants to share what it knows with these 2 women.

As the stories of the past unfold, Ida and Heather are discovering new things about the history they thought they knew and I loved the pace of secrets being uncovered. Ida, in particular, seems scared of her own shadow at times and you wonder where that distrust has come from. Heather seems a much calmer and self assured character and tries to teach Ida about the ways of the earth – making peace with what is around you to find peace yourself.

This was a book that touches your soul and I adored it! Highly recommended!!

★★★★★

Advertisement

Snow Sisters by Carol Lovekin #bookreview

THE BLURB

Two sisters, their grandmother’s old house and Angharad… the girl who cannot leave.

Meredith discovers a dusty sewing box in a disused attic. Once open the box releases the ghost of Angharad, a Victorian child-woman with a horrific secret she must share. Angharad slowly reveals her story to Meredith who fails to convince her more pragmatic sister of the visitations until Verity sees Angharad for herself on the eve of an unseasonal April snowstorm.

Forced by her flighty mother to abandon Gull House for London, Meredith struggles to settle, still haunted by Angharad and her little red flannel hearts. This time, Verity is not sure she will be able to save her…

Two parallel coming of age stories – one tragic, the other holding out the hope of salvation.

Amazon UK

Hive.co.uk – buy online and support your local bookstore

PUBLISHER  Honno Press

About the Author Carol Lovekin

💙💚💛💜

MY REVIEW

Once again, Carol Lovekin has created a novel of lyrical beauty that sweeps you along, enthralls and delights in equal measures! Having read her previous work, Ghostbird, and adored that I was eagerly awaiting the release of Snow Sisters – and I’ve not been disappointed!!

This is a story that focuses on ghosts – of the living and the dead. It also features heavily the complexities of female relationships, be they mothers, daughters or sisters and how even the bond of family blood can be tested and pushed to the limits.

At the heart of the story is Gull House – home to Verity, Meredith, Allegra their mother, and their grandmother. Their home is their world but there is a ghost from the path whose prescence soon consumes their world and her story is heartbreaking.

Having the timeline interspersed with the harrowing story of Angharad – the sad, mad girl as she was known in the village at the time – was so poignant and heartbreaking. Her suffering and torment is felt deeply by the reader as her life story and thoughts are revealed, and the connection she has to the living sisters is beautifully captured. There is much that is ugly in this story from the behaviour of the sisters’ mother, to the brother of Angharrad, but it never distracts from the overall magical/supernatural feel to the book.

The story is told in 3 parts, and I loved the switch from the past to the present with Meredith and Verity and how their lives were entwined with Gull House and that pull it had over them. The writing style is stunning once more and that really helps the characters and settings stick with me as a reader and i just adored it from start to finish!!

💚💛💜💙

If you haven’t read anything by this author before I can highly recommend this book  along with her previous book Ghostbird – click the link if you’d like to read my GoodReads review where I wax lyrical about how much I enjoyed that story too!! 

HAPPY READING!!