Back of the book :
Cassie has long been fascinated by Beaufont Hall, the house her family lived in but no longer speak about. When the chance comes to explore the beautiful but crumbling mansion. Cassie jumps at the opportunity – little realising she’s about to shine a light on a long -buried family secret.
For Eliza, decades before, the heady pull of Soho at it’s most electric is a difficult thing to ignore, full of glamour, parties and indulgence. With the world at her feet, Eliza finds everything comes at a price.
What I think :
Cassie is just a normal girl working in a antique book shop in London. However, she is fascinated by her old family home “Beaufont Hall”. It has been in her mother’s family for years and actually belongs to her mother, Rebecca. Cassie and her family have never lived there though, and her mother won’t tell her why or anything about her past. When a old relative that was living at the old hall dies, Someone needs to go and clean it to get it ready to be sold. Cassie is upset that her mother wants to finally sell it and offers to go and clean it just so she can say ‘Goodbye’ to the old place. Whilst she is cleaning in the vast library she finds some hand written diaries dated from the 1970’s belonging to a lost relative. Its between the pages of the old books that she finds out something about her past and some long lost secrets too …
Eliza hates living in Tottenham, its the 1970’s and she wants so much more from life, she 17 and ready to leave home. When she meets Alison her life goes from boring to fun. She moves out of her parents, Lillie and Berties house and into squat in Soho, there she meets some fabulous people with exotic names, goes to back street clubs and gets a job in a seedy pub. But she soon discovers that sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for …
what a fabulous read, the story had me hooked right from the moment I picked up the book, when I wasn’t reading it, I was wondering what was going to happen next. The characters are expertly written. I really felt that I was actually in the seedy Soho nightclubs of the 70’s with the smell of beer and sweat up my nose and in the cold, damp bedrooms of the huge mansion.
What I also liked was the fact that you don’t find out quite how Eliza fits into the puzzle until quite a way into the book and when you do find out its makes you think ‘of course !’
The book is written in present time, now, which is Cassie’s story and also in the 1970’s with Eliza’s.
There are many twists and turns and ‘oh’ moments in this book, and also plenty of secrets.
I give this one 10/10.
Published by Orion books on 11/02/16
Candys BookCase 