I had read all of Rachel Hore's books before I picked up this one, so I knew what to expect and I definitely had high expectations from it. I think this book has to be one of my favourites from her. The main story line in the present follows the story of Jude (short for Judith) as she is employed by Richard Wickham, his wife Alexia and his mother Chantel to value the many books, astrology instruments and personal journals collected and written by their ancestor Anthony Wickham. It is here that she learns of Esther Wickham, a relative who seems to have fallen off the family tree, and begins to uncover her story. On top of this, the mysterious folly is guarding it's own secrets, and how is it possible that Jude's niece Summer, the daughter of her sister Claire, is suffering from the same nightmares that Jude herself suffered from as a child? And who is Tamsin, the gypsy girl who befriended Jude and Claire's grandmother when she was a child?
I know all of the above seems a little hard to digest in one go, but the way that the author delivers each one of these plot lines to us makes each and every one of them make sense, even though I personally had no idea how they would fit together. Usually when I read books like these, where there are links to the past and present, I have some 'idea' of what the 'big secret' will be, and i'm usually right, give or take a few facts. I've had this with some books by Rachel too, such as 'A Gathering Storm' (although that was certainly my favourite Rachel Hore book until this one - now i'm not so sure!). I think it is a mark of a skillful writer when they are able to lead you into the story like that, with these big secrets in them, while still be able to maintain the 'big reveal' at the end. One of the impressive things about this book for me was that it never felt like there was a 'big reveal' even though all of the things mentioned in the first paragraph had a solution. It felt like a 'journey of discovery' as I moved through the book with Jude; some things became clearer while opening the doors to other questions. Each individual plot line was dealt with in it's own time, so I never felt like the book was leading towards some 'big reveal.' It felt like I was simply uncovering the answers with Jude, and I really enjoyed that aspect of this book.
The reason for the missing star is because, as mentioned by some other reviewers, the ending almost seems 'too perfect' or 'too coincidental.' Then again, coincidences can happen in life sometimes I guess :D But also some parts of some of the plot lines (not wishing to reveal spoilers here) relied on a very different kind of evidence, evidence which may in fact not be allowed to be called evidence. It would have been nice to have concrete evidence to support those parts of the story. But all in all, I really enjoyed this book. I'm really looking forward to her new book this year; I can tell from her 5 current books that she has been getting better and better with each one that she writes, and I can't wait to see how she develops in the next one.