Still grieving the death of her husband, Lauren leaves the hubbub of Boston for the peaceful shores of Cape Cod, where she hopes to come to terms with her loss and devote herself to her writing. Historic Holland House, isolated on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, seems like the perfect refuge, until Lauren discovers that she's not alone, and her ghostly roommate might be none other than Sophie Holland, the mysterious first mistress of the house.
With the help of a handsome doctor with an interest in local history, Lauren is soon drawn out of her self-imposed exile as she sets out to learn what happened to Sophie and stumbles onto a story worth writing about.
Fans of Susanna Kearsley and Barbara Erskine are sure to enjoy this dual timeline tale of romantic suspense.
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If walls could talk, what a story they'd tell - a story of love, betrayal, and murder. PROLOGUE
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(@themerlinpress, 5 May 2020, ebook, 401 pages, borrowed from @AmazonKindle, #PrimeReading)
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This is a new author for me. I decided to read the book because I liked the cover and the blurb sounded interesting. This is a great mystery read and I enjoyed the time I spent between the pages. The book uses one of my favourite structures, time shifts with chapters moving between now and the 1700's. In the present, Lauren is struggling to find her place in the world after the death of her fiancé and the revelations that their relationship was not as loving and perfect as she thought. She has come to Cape Cod to get it all straight in her head and decide what she wants to do in the future. In the past, Sophie chooses to love a man destined to become a notorious pirate because the alternative is staying married to a man who beats her. We get a few chapters from each POV and then the POV shifts. I enjoyed Sophie's chapters more because they were a bit more interesting and had more going on and I wanted to know how things turned out.
