The Girl at the Window - Rowan Coleman - A Random Things Blog Tour
The Girl at the Window - Rowan Coleman - A Random Things Blog Tour
Today I am delighted to be part of another Random Things Blog Tour, this time it's for the new book by Rowan Coleman and its a superb romantic read with everything book lovers will adore.
Look at the exalted bloggers I'm joining - do pop by their blogs too.
I have read this delightful book and am pleased to share my review:
My Review
The Girl at the window is a delightful, eerie, atmospheric multi timeline story with a haunting sense of romance and loss.
In a Yorkshire setting of a spooky and legend filled old crumbling family home called Ponden Hall, we find the main character Trudy returning to the home where she grew up. Her unconventional crotchety Mother still lives there and when tragedy strikes Trudys happy marriage, it is back to Ponden that Trudy brings her young son Will when both are left reeling with shock and disbelief that Wills beloved father Abe is missing believed dead and their happy family life is no more.
At Ponden Hall mysteries have lain hidden for centuries and Trudy’s skill as a book archivist, leads her to investigate the strong links within the Hall with the Bronte’s and it is this link which gives Trudy something to cling to and focus on to cope with her grief.
What unfolds is not the usual dual-time historical romance but a triple timeline story, with the lives of 3 young women all linking with each other over time. Modern-day Tru struggles to get on with the cantankerous mother she has always found it difficult to relate to, Back in the annals of time we hear the voice of a young woman called Agnes who worked at the hall and had the very unusual skill of reading and writing in a time when such skills marked a woman out as a rebel and she finds herself in a dire predicament. She shares her thoughts with her journal snippets of which emerge centuries later to reveal glimpses of her life. Plus there is the story of Emily Bronte who used the library at Ponden Hall (now bereft of books) and even stayed there in a concealed window bed which still remains in the 21st century.
There is a really creepy atmosphere throughout, glimpses of the past coupled with legends of a black beast who appears when a family death is imminent, serve to create an eerie and haunting Gothic backdrop to this contemporary love story.
It’s a lovely uplifting and heartwarming story of family ties, loyalty and abiding love. Will is a great little lad, and the Bronte link makes it all the more realistic. Tru is fighting hard to cope with losing the love of her life and bring up a small boy and everything in her life is change and mayhem, little wonder she finds it hard to get by and is easy to spook when she imagines things that go bump in the night … or IS it her imagination?
This is just the perfect book to lose yourself in, whether you are on a sunny beach whiling away your holidays or cosied up indoors with the rain lashing outside. It’s got everything a thoroughly enjoyable read should have…. Great characters with plenty of depth, flaws and foibles, lots about books, legends and ghosts, a haunting old house I’d love to have a look around, grief and forgiveness and a damn good "gallop along with it and gulp it all up" story.
There is a timeless quality to this book reminiscent of books I've enjoyed by Suzanna Kearsley and Barbara Erskine.
Superb writing and a story so damned easy to get swallowed up in, I lost a couple of days in this book hardly even noticing life was continuing, just great escapism of the highest calibre.
Today I am delighted to be part of another Random Things Blog Tour, this time it's for the new book by Rowan Coleman and its a superb romantic read with everything book lovers will adore.
Look at the exalted bloggers I'm joining - do pop by their blogs too.
I have read this delightful book and am pleased to share my review:
My Review
The Girl at the window is a delightful, eerie, atmospheric multi timeline story with a haunting sense of romance and loss.
In a Yorkshire setting of a spooky and legend filled old crumbling family home called Ponden Hall, we find the main character Trudy returning to the home where she grew up. Her unconventional crotchety Mother still lives there and when tragedy strikes Trudys happy marriage, it is back to Ponden that Trudy brings her young son Will when both are left reeling with shock and disbelief that Wills beloved father Abe is missing believed dead and their happy family life is no more.
At Ponden Hall mysteries have lain hidden for centuries and Trudy’s skill as a book archivist, leads her to investigate the strong links within the Hall with the Bronte’s and it is this link which gives Trudy something to cling to and focus on to cope with her grief.
What unfolds is not the usual dual-time historical romance but a triple timeline story, with the lives of 3 young women all linking with each other over time. Modern-day Tru struggles to get on with the cantankerous mother she has always found it difficult to relate to, Back in the annals of time we hear the voice of a young woman called Agnes who worked at the hall and had the very unusual skill of reading and writing in a time when such skills marked a woman out as a rebel and she finds herself in a dire predicament. She shares her thoughts with her journal snippets of which emerge centuries later to reveal glimpses of her life. Plus there is the story of Emily Bronte who used the library at Ponden Hall (now bereft of books) and even stayed there in a concealed window bed which still remains in the 21st century.
There is a really creepy atmosphere throughout, glimpses of the past coupled with legends of a black beast who appears when a family death is imminent, serve to create an eerie and haunting Gothic backdrop to this contemporary love story.
It’s a lovely uplifting and heartwarming story of family ties, loyalty and abiding love. Will is a great little lad, and the Bronte link makes it all the more realistic. Tru is fighting hard to cope with losing the love of her life and bring up a small boy and everything in her life is change and mayhem, little wonder she finds it hard to get by and is easy to spook when she imagines things that go bump in the night … or IS it her imagination?
This is just the perfect book to lose yourself in, whether you are on a sunny beach whiling away your holidays or cosied up indoors with the rain lashing outside. It’s got everything a thoroughly enjoyable read should have…. Great characters with plenty of depth, flaws and foibles, lots about books, legends and ghosts, a haunting old house I’d love to have a look around, grief and forgiveness and a damn good "gallop along with it and gulp it all up" story.
There is a timeless quality to this book reminiscent of books I've enjoyed by Suzanna Kearsley and Barbara Erskine.
Superb writing and a story so damned easy to get swallowed up in, I lost a couple of days in this book hardly even noticing life was continuing, just great escapism of the highest calibre.
The Blurb
A beautiful new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Memory Book and The Summer of Impossible Things. The Girl at the Window is a beautiful and captivating novel set at Ponden Hall, a centuries-old house on the Yorkshire moors and famously used as a setting for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Known as the place where Cathy’s ghost taps on the window, Emily Bronte used to visit often with her sisters and use the extensive library there. It’s a magical place full of stories.
In The Girl at the Window, Ponden Hall is where Trudy Heaton grew up, but also where
she ran away from…
Now, after the devastating loss of her husband, Trudy returns home with her young son,
Will, who refuses to believe his father is dead. While Trudy tries to do her best for her son,
she must also attempt to build bridges with her eccentric mother. And then there is the Hall itself: fallen into disrepair but generations of lives and loves still echo in its shadows, sometimes even reaching out to the present...
The Girl at the Window is hauntingly beautiful, and centred on an epic love story with a twist that draws you in fast. The strong themes of grief, absent fathers and maternal instincts are consistent emotional pulls throughout. Trudy and Abe are the ultimate love story, but there is also a wonderfully atmospheric ghostly mystery to be solved as well.
Author Rowan Coleman
Rowan Coleman lives with her husband and their five children in a very full house
in Hertfordshire. She juggles writing novels with raising her family. Rowan’s last novel,
The Summer of Impossible Things, was selected for Zoe Ball’s ITV Book Club. Rowan has an everlasting love for the Brontes, and is a regular visitor of Ponden Hall.
www.rowancoleman.co.uk | @rowancoleman
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