Return to Fourwinds

Author/Guide: Elisabeth Gifford

Why a Booktrail?

Destination: Valencia, Madrid, Manchester, Derbyshire Departure Time: 2000s

One house. Two families. And a bride no where to be seen

ISBN: 978-1782391166
Genre: Fiction

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

Two families are set to join together to celebrate the marriage of their children at Fourwinds. Everything is set up ready -the marquee, the flowers. In fact everything is ready apart from the fact that the bride is missing. Sarah has disappeared only a few days before the wedding and the soul searching which follows opens up many wounds and threatens to overshadow the happiness of the future. Both families have a lot of questions to ask and a lot of issues to face in the very place which is at the centre of everyones lives, where the four members of one family come back together to face the storm ahead.

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

Fourwinds is an old house which is central to the story of two families as they come together . The house is symbolic for it’s full of secrets and these secrets start to spill out when they are all joined together again.

Amazing to think that the story was inspired by secrets recently uncovered in the author’s own family history concerning an OBE awarded during World War II….

1981 Derbyshire

1930’s Spain with effortless ease and the consummate skill of the author ensures that all time frames have equal importance with none trying to outshine the other.

Manchester

Peter’s story takes place in the ‘slums of the north’ and it’s his spirit and determination to do something with his life that takes him forward in life. Poverty and squalor are common here

Valencia

Ralph’s eventful childhood in 1930s Valencia is like reading from a picture postcard set amongst the fragrant orange groves , the air aromatic and orange spiced. But amidst the heat of the orange groves and the lush countryside is the imbakance of and heavy scent of war in the air.
WW1 and WW2

Events in both wars take you back to the gassing of one soldier, the evacuation of his and other children in the second and over in Spain, a boy is caught up in the Spanish revolution. The banners which float in the breeze declaring – bedsheets floating and declaring Viva Franco, everyone saluting madly, the srit of war, the skulduggery of war all around.

Booktrailer Review

Clare: @thebooktrailer

I loved the fact that one house and two families stories could weave their way out and cover so many time periods and locations. The novel is quite complex as it jumps around quite a bit and can be a bit slow in the beginning because of all the change but maybe this was because I was reading on a kindle and don’t normally read dual timelines due to this very problem.

What the novel was to me was an epic read of so many secrets coming to light when a marriage was about to take place. It’s a big story with many many threads which come together slowly but surely. I think you should take your time with this novel as it does reward you for gaining the information to see the overall picture. I’s all about keeping secrets, hiding secrets and then being forced to let them out in the open when that really is the only place left for them to go.

I particularly enjoyed the sections set in Valencia as these to be were the most evocative, symbolic and enjoyable but the sections set in Manchester and the ‘slums’ were poignant. In fact this is quite the jigsaw of a novel as you really do need every piece to make sense of it all and that only happens at the end.