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1970s, 2016 : One gothic mansion, two women, three decades of secrets binding them together
The Silent Fountain
What you need to know before your trail
The crumbling Castillo Barbarossa, is now a shadow of its former self. The owner keeps herself enclosed in the attic, only two members of staff attend to her, a gardener and a maid. The owner never comes down if there is a knock at the door, but then no one dare come round here anymore for this is not a friendly home and the vine leaves weaving around the doors could choke you, the fountain with the giant cold fish ornament is old and faded, covered in moss and decades of dirt, but still it gurgles. The water provides the only sound in this quiet gothic landscape.
Two women find this house to be a sort of escape and also a prison. It provides shelter and a place to hide from the world – Vivien in the 1970s and now Lucy in the present day, but these two women separated by fate and time find the house binds them to its secrets. They have secrets of their own but this house rules and overshadows them all – it is the secrets of Castillo Barbarossa which will provide the answers these two women seek…
Travel Guide
Hollywood
Vivien’s story starts in Hollywood where, following an abusive start in life, she dreams of working in the city of stars. She has run away from home so is in the city without any guidance or friends living on a luck and a dime. Here she is working as a dancer named Cleopatra in a sordid bar called Boudoir Lalique with other girls escaping from a former life.
The Lalique wasn’t any old discotheque. Whereas others in town were as light as Cinzano, this was as syrupy and dark as the throat-searing brandy it served in diamond-cut tumblers behind the bar. Lavish, smoky, sexy and strictly private, it oozed decadence”
But this is also the place where men cluster in leather booths, lone wolves who often prowl in packs.Hostess work is not what she imagined or wants to do so when she gets a chance to make it big in Hollywood, she jumps to the chance, but jumps head first into another life. Dr Moretti is her golden ticket -he has a house in Italy and their new life will take them from Hollywood to another kind of stage and a whole new mysterious and secretive landscape altogether.
The Silent Fountain (c) TheBookTrail
Tuscany – Fiesole
Castillo Barbarossa in Vivien’s day is a grand gothic mansion – it’s beauty shines from every window, every angle of the house seems to reflect the sunshine making it glow, the water of the fountain flows and makes the colours of the trees reflected in its water shimmer and glisten. When Vivien first meets Dr Moretti she describes him as ” A prince who had lived for a thousand years and never aged a day” Life here at first is a dream – she craves the sanctuary, security and safety she has never had. This old house encloses her, the fountain flows, one man keeps the gardens, a maid tends to her every need but there is little to do, her husband is away, she is lost again in a house where the walls whisper and where the secrets creak with the floorboards. The history of this house reveals itself bit by bit, and soon an unwelcome guest comes to stay…
Present day – the house is now a shadow of its former self. Tucked high up in the Tuscan hills, it’s enveloped in the forest of its own past. There’s even a secret garden, a lost key, something that stirs at night, a figure in the reflection of a window, fingerprints on a dusty handrail…..
“Some days I regard the castle as beautiful; on others, when the sun catches it wrong it appears close to monstrous, a hulking blot against the landscape, a closed fortress….”
There’s a mysterious maid who seems to rule the roost, the owner who hides away and never comes down to Lucy or invites her to her rooms…..and in the attic, in the gardens there is a secret floating in the wind, tapping on the windows at night, one which will make Lucy question everyone and everything and realise that her fate is intrinsically linked to this mysterious place and the secrets within…
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Stunning in every way – the plot, characters, dual time line, hidden secrets, that stunning mansion in the Tuscan hills…the women whose destinies seem to be linked via that place…. I was enthralled throughout and was totally captivated with the twists and turns of the vine like plot which reeled you in and kept me firmly locked inside that house, hearing its every creek, wondering if I would ever see the mysterious owner, find out the mystery of that fountain….
I’ve never felt so excited about a novel unravelling in a long while…that house had me captivated and entranced like I’d been mesmerized, hypnotised even. What is Vivien’s link to that house and why does Lucy find there? Why is Lucy welcomed by a maid who seems to lock everything away and hide even the owner from sight? OMG I wanted to know but all I could see were the vines, the cold gothic turrets of that house..when Lucy dared enter one of the rooms she was not allowed to venture into, I held my breath…… I could see the corridors, feel the tension, smell the fear and wanted to help Lucy dig those secrets out. Vivien especially had that allure from the start and her time in the house and her struggles were some of the most tense moments which shocked and made me gasp out loud. I found myself almost shouting out advice and the odd ‘ She’s behind you!’ so vivid was the tension and fear. This was no pantomime however – but real tension and a story being played out where you as the helpless readers was held there, hynotised by the flicker of each page….
I loved this book – it reminded me of the times where as a child, the world slipped away, the trees seemed to wrap their branches around me, the walls of my bedroom dissolved and where I was in that gothic place, seeing characters come to life and step from the pages.
Victoria Fox has written a novel of complex yet alluring detail that held my gaze from the start. Just brilliant. Breathlessly intriguing, as twisty and deadly as those vines growing on the wall outside. And the Fox puppet master controlling the characters from above…never once did I see or feel the strings and the performances were electric. The ending – bravo but I’m still inside Castillo Barbarossa even now as I cannot bear to leave its walls.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Silent Fountain
Author/Guide: Victoria Fox Destination: Hollywood, Tuscany, Fiesole Departure Time: 1970s, 2000s
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