Why a Booktrail?
1815: A house with character is a house with secrets…
The Vanishing
What you need to know before your trail
When runaway Annaleigh first meets the Twentymans, their offer of employment and lodgings seems a blessing. Only later does she discover the truth. But by then she is already in the middle of a web of darkness and intrigue, where murder seems the only possible means of escape…
Annaleigh, an Orphan, travels to White Windows, a house of secrets, to start work as a housekeeper with the mysterious Twentymans. The house is creepy and isolated and it’s not long before she finds out that the last housekeeper disappeared without a trace. The atmosphere of the house becomes darker and stranger still and even the other servants seem to be warning her to be careful.
but White Windows is her home now, she can’t go back. The house, it seems will shape her future.
Travel Guide
1814 The Yorkshire Moors
The blue hills across the valley were softened by an approaching veil of rain, the outline softening and dissolving as we spoke. I have never seen weather approaching from distance before and the sight on any normal day would have entranced me . But it was a sight to be watched from behind window, with a log on the fire and plenty more in the store.
In London with its crowded streets, dense with voices colour and smells, I had been raised to think of the people as the threat; but here the vanquisher was the landscape itself.
White Windows
A house built of grey stone, the same shade as the laden rainclouds at out back. The only relief its white shutter. It seemed ancient ancient despite its symmetrical, long windows, the portico which had been added at some point in the last fifth years, its measurements somehow wrong, and ragging.
It seemed to crouch in the rugged landscape , as though cowering from the rain”
Streetview Maps
A) Yorkshire Moors
D) Yorkshire Moors - "White Windows"
Booktrailer Review
Sophie Tobin writes a darn good gothic tale! If you read this on the Yorkshire moors where the book is set, in the middle of winter, you will chill yourself and you might even see White Windows, the house, as it seems so real.
It put me in mind of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre as it has that kind of chilling, remote, raw, wild feel to it all. Annaleigh comes from London to work at the gothic house there and to become its housekeeper. There’s the lonesome master and a sister there but they’re not what she is expecting and there’s something odd and strange about them and the house. Chill factor alert!
The moors and the gothic house really are the star of the show but the characters…oh let’s not forget them…so vividly drawn and dark…Annaleigh faces one challenge after another and has to decide how she will live at the house and how she will deal with those already there. But how will they deal with her? This is claustrophobic and ominous, with a sense of foreboding wrapping and whistling around the moors like the wind itself. The mysterious Twentymans are some of the most deliciously gothic creations I’ve read in some time.
Sophia Tobin weaves an intricate spell in these pages and it’s a delight to read although I may avoid a visit to the Yorkshire moors until the memories fade…..
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Vanishing
Author/Guide: Sophia Tobin Destination: Yorkshire Moors Departure Time: 1814
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