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2000s: An old Elizabethan hall in Norfolk holds secrets from past and present
The Winter Children
What you need to know before your trail
Renniston Hall, a remote Elizabethan Hall in the middle of Norfolk used to be a children’s school many years ago. Now in disrepair, it is slowly being brought back to life by Francesca, whose husband Walt has always wanted a bit of history.
However the history is so much more than anyone could have imagined for the house has secrets yet to be revealed.When Francesca moves in her old friend Dan and his wife Olivia, with their new IVF twins, they soon become part of the house’s history and secrets – as well as a secret right at the heart of their new family.
Travel Guide
A tale of two worlds. Francesca with husband Walt comes from a Cambridge background which is where she met Dan. Flying over all over the world, trying to blend further into his world, she has now given up her former life to be the hostess with the mostess. Looking after her teenage children, she thought her life would be somewhat different by now. When Rennington Hall comes into her life, she is at first reluctant but then a plan comes into mind and suddenly the hall is the centre of her world. Rennington hall, a vast Elizabethan house that had been a private home and then a school, and then left to decay.
Dan and Olivia with their new family have come through a lot to have IVF children. They love the remoteness and cosiness of their home although start to resent the unexpected visits from Francesca. Their home is her project but they feel trapped.
“Outside the garden looked large and with potential but it was dormant, everything bare and bleak”
They return from a stay in her native Argentina and the contrast between English countryside and the heat of the Argentinian summer is palpable:
“She doesn’t know this place not yet. And anyway, she’s rusty. It’s been two years since she’s experienced a spring at home, and her eye is still reacquainting itself with an English garden, after being surrounded by the flora of an Argentinean estancia.”
Rennington Hall an old house famed for where Queen Elizabeth I slept apparently is the house with secrets. An old girl’s school where Dan and Olivia are now caretakers. Where old William is reluctant to leave the grounds he’s lived in for years. The school has left its mark on the house and as the two stories combine, the story of Francesca and Dan’s early Cambridge life leaves the final stain on the whole affair.
Booktrailer Review
Clare:
The blurb doesn’t do this book justice and I don’t want to explain more as I want other readers to discover what I did and be as surprised as I was. The story blends with the one where the house is a school and the history is built up to reveal the mixed secrets at the end.
The present day story told through the eyes of the three friends – Dan Francesca in particular, and the ripples from their Cambridge past come into play as Olivia starts to suspect there is a lot more behind the surface. Some of this storyline did feel a little farfetched and I still don’t know what to make of Francesca – a strange character from every angle. However no one is as they seem.
I first discovered Lulu Taylor with the Winter Folly and the Winter Children also set in an old house with secrets made for a cracking afternoon in front of a fire.
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