PUBLISHER: Harper Voyager
EDITION: KindleOPENING
WHAT I THOUGHT RELEASE DATE: 10 March 2016
PAGES: 384
The sea calls to Eleanor. Like the turn of the waves it beckons her from the heart of the town she's always known, from her husband Hob and their young daughter, Agnes, to the unfathomable depths of the ocean.
Agnes's daughter Eleanor is six years old. She shares her name with the grandmother she never knew and everything else with her identical twin, Esmerelda. But to Agnes, only Eleanor is a constant reminder of the past.
After a dark event leaves her family in tatters, Eleanor, now fourteen, is left caring for her alcoholic mother, whose grief has torn her apart. But when Eleanor's reality begins to unravel, she starts to lose her grip on time itself, slipping from the present into strange other lands where she's in danger of losing herself altogether.
Eleanor is the story of choices that ripple through time far beyond the moment they're made. And what happens when, just sometimes, bonds are so powerful they reach beyond this world and into another...
She sits in the breakfast nook and watches the rain. It falls with purpose, as if it has a consciousness, as if it intends to eradicate the earth, layer by layer. The front lawn is hard to make out in the downpour, but Eleanor can already see that the topsoil has been churned into mud. Her flowers bend sideways, petals yanked off by the storm. By afternoon only the thorny rose stems will remain.
Eleanor is a beautiful, intense novel. I adored it. The characters are great, really fleshed out and well written. I love strong female characters so I could relate to Eleanor and Agnes. The opening is very dramatic and well-written. Eleanor goes out for a swim and never returns. What a great way to start a story and spark interest. I was immediately pulled into the story. Eleanor is a mix of sci-fi, fantasy and even horror. I was a bit thrown when teenage Eleanor starts to travel through time and thought what the hell is going on? but found myself happily pulled along by the story. Eleanor is very well-written and I found it hard to put down at times. This novel is very compelling and the kind of book that can get its hooks in you and refuse to let go. I love the structure used by the author. It fits the story very well.