Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Their rented cottage is simultaneously their armour against the world and their sanctuary. Inside its walls they make music, in its garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.
But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. At risk of losing everything, Jeanie and her brother must fight to survive in an increasingly dangerous world as their mother's secrets unfold; putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.
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The morning sky lightens, and snow falls on the cottage. 1
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(@FigTreeBooks, 25 March 2021, 304 pages, paperback, #ARC from the publisher and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 20 March)
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This is not quite the book I was expecting but I fell in love with it all the same. The blurb made me think the twins would be almost feral, cut-off and isolated and they aren't. They are isolated, though not as much as I expected and don't have the best social skills, especially Jeanie but are more adjusted than I thought they would be. I fell in love with them and their small world as they find everything they believed threatened and turned upside down. Unsettled Ground is the perfect title for the book. I found this incredibly sad as the twins struggle not only to cope with grieving their mother but trying to adjust to so many unexpected changes thrust on them. The book broke my heart at times. There is a lot of love in the book as well. This is a remarkable book.
