Frances, who is dying, is looking back on her life. The time that she is looking back to is 1969 and the location is Lyntons, a collapsing country house in Hampshire.
At this time, Frances is 39. Her mother has recently died, Frances having cared for her for the past ten years. After her mother’s death, Frances is employed by a rich American to go and assess the outside buildings and grounds of Lyntons.
When Frances arrives at Lyntons she finds a couple living in the rooms below her, Peter and Cara. Frances becomes obsessed with the couple, to the extent that she spys on them through a spy hole in her bathroom. The couple lead an exotic, shocking life to Frances who is just beginning to live her life after years of serving her mother; she is socially inept and has never met a couple like Peter and Cara before.
Told over a long, hot summer with fantastic descriptive writing about the crumbling country house and its surroundings, the plot of this novel is intricate yet the book is not difficult to read. Frances is lonely and has never had a friend and becomes obsessed with what she sees as the perfect life of Peter and Cara. Frances is ready to live life but doesn’t know how.
As the book progresses we realise that Peter and Cara’s life is full of imperfections and unhappiness and watch Frances, at first swept up with the glamour of the couple, coming to realise this.
I found this to be a very well written and captivating story, which left me thinking about it for a long time after finishing the book.

This is an excellent book that had me totally hooked from the first few pages. A seductive storyline with strong characters and an atmospheric setting. It’s already had so many good reviews so I’m not sure I can add anything new to the mix so I’ll keep it fairly short and sweet.

What’s it about?

Frances, now elderly and slowly dying, reflects back to the time when she spent a summer living at Lyntons, a neglected country mansion. She shares the large, empty house with a mysterious couple – Peter and Cara. Both Frances and Peter have been sent to the house to report on the architecture and gardens, noting down the inventory and to salvage anything of value to be sent to their employer Mr Liebermann, a wealthy American. Frances obsesses over the couple and ultimately gets caught up in their intoxicating and fraught relationship.

Things I liked

The characters are superb, especially Frances and Cara. Frances is, in her words “a difficult old bird” and was “shy and awkward, large and plain” in her youth. In comparison, Cara is “hot-blooded and prickly, bewitching; a flowering cactus”. The unlikely friendship between the two is a confidence boost for Frances but as a reader you can’t help feeling a twinge of suspicion about where the friendship is heading.

In her old age Frances’s dry wit has a blunt, dark undercurrent. She talks about her troubled relationship with her parents and her extremely sheltered and strict upbringing:

“Payment will always be due for any wrongdoing, don’t lie or steal, don’t talk to strange men, don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t look your mother in the eye, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t expect anything from life.”

Don’t look your mother in the eye? Say whaaat? You’ve gotta love a messed up mother-daughter relationship!

The structure of the book is perfectly executed, the story seamlessly switching between the present day and the summer of 1969 (cue Bryan Adam’s song getting stuck in your head!).

The sultry summer, paired with the impressive yet overgrown mansion grounds creates a stifling, uneasy feeling. The author’s detailed descriptions meant I could easily envisage the setting and the number of unexpected twists as well as the looming sense of dread that permeated the story made it extremely compelling.

Any issues?

I would have liked more voyeuristic peephole action! Ha! But no, I really did love everything about this book and that’s why it gets a big fat 5 stars.

Why you should read this book

It’s a tantalisingly good read, full of suspense and titillation!

I enjoyed this book from the title and cover picture to its conclusion. It kept me guessing with all it's twists, turns and red herrings.
Frances Jellico, a woman who has led a lonely life, is given the opportunity to do some historical research on the bridge at Lyntons, a crumbling country house. She is given permission to live there while she carries out the report for the owner who lives abroad. When she arrives she finds a couple living there already, Peter also having been given research work to report back. They soon become close friends and while she is enjoying their company and their lifestyle she tries to unravel the mysterious tale of Cara's life. Their friendship is her undoing and the story flits from this time to the present day when the vicar attempts to extricate the truth of the final days at Lynton. A very clever plot. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC.

Gosh, this reminded me so much of Daphne Du Maurier; one of my favourite authors ever. Claire has certainly got it right with her latest novel, 'Bitter Orange'. This novel's plot is genius. It's one of those ones where you wish you'd thought it up yourself. Bitter Orange has a gothic feel to it, the motifs, foreshadowing and symbolism is just stunning. Plus, Claire has stepped up her usual unreliable narrator to two — one is hard enough to pull off — but two is a stroke of genius. As usual, Fuller's narrative tension, imagery and dark undertones are second to none. As I was writing this review I was wondering if it was a summer read. It is after all set in a heatwave, but actually there would be something quite comforting abut sitting by the fire and reading this, being taken off to the heady days of summer as the rain falls or the fog swirls outside. This book's settings are as diverse as they are interesting — a dilapidated country house, a care home — and the characterisation is great with a real international feel, British upper lip, American, Irish - just great!
Notice I'm not discussing the plot. I don't want to, as I read it not knowing what to expect, and I think this book works best if you read it with no preconceptions.
In conclusion? Loved it and as usual Claire hasn't disappointed loyal readers like me who will devour everything she writes, secretly hoping each one will be better than the last. It was, although 'Our Endless Numbered Days' is still in my head after all this time.
Hurry up Claire and write the next one please!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy.

Thank you to Netgalley for a chance to read and review this book before publication.

Bitter Orange is a tale told from the perspective of elderly Frances who is lying on her deathbed. Frances tells us of the summer in 1969 that she worked cataloguing architectural items of significance at a dilapidated English Country estate for the American owner, Mr Liebermann. During the course of her work she stayed at the house alongside another couple and Bitter Orange is the story of what really happened that summer.

This book promised shocking twists but I found these 'twists' were a little predictable and the ending left me with questions about some of the characters. I did really enjoy reading Bitter Orange and even found it to be quite chilling in places! If you like Daphne Du Maurier you will love this book.

My rating is a 2.5.

I have not read any of Claire Fuller’s books before. But I had seen some good reviews of her previous book, “Swimming Lessons” and was curious to read “Bitter Orange.” Thanks to NetGalley, and Penguin UK for giving me the ARC for a review!

“Bitter Orange” is set in the summer of 1969 and has all the ingredients for a typical ‘summery’ book. An old manor. An atmospheric, almost Gothic, setting. Three very intriguing, oddball characters. And a story that goes back and forth between the present and the past adding to the suspense.

It begins with Frances Jellico, the narrator, currently in a hospital or in an institution, where she is reaching the end of her days. She starts reminiscing about that long summer when she went to research the architecture of a crumbling old estate from the pre-war era named the Lyntons. Frances meets a couple, Peter, an antique evaluator, and his partner Cara, who have also moved in recently. The couple invite her to spend time with them and have all her meals with them. Hesitant at first, she accepts eventually.

The days that follow are a haze of sun and wine and stories from the past. Sub-plots emerge around Cara’s past and her quirky behaviour. Peter tells his own version of events that Cara has narrated and as the book progresses we feel the lines beginning to blur. While Cara has been established as an unstable person from the beginning, we now begin to question Peter as well. And what about Frances? She is infatuated with the couple, and desires Peter. But does her infatuation rise from her own unanchored mind? Does she desire Peter because she is conscious of her inexperience at the age of 39?

“Bitter Orange” begins slowly but turns somewhere in the middle to pick up pace. About three fourths of my way into the book I could feel the plot hurtling towards something catastrophic. Something was brewing. Something was about to happen. And it did. And then it all ended very quickly.

I closed the book with mixed feelings. I enjoyed some of the lush prose in the book, with the manor and its surroundings standing out vividly. It is set in the vein of works like The Great Gatsby and Brideshead Revisited (which is one of my favourite books) but somehow lacks that secret sauce that made those books classics. Perhaps it’s the fact that I was aware of everything building up to something. Or perhaps it was the sub-plots that twisted and turned a bit too much. Frances is the only narrator here and she is like the “all-seeing eye. What has it seen? Nothing as interesting as the things I saw through the judas hole at Lyntons.”

Frances is like the judas hole for us, the readers. But sad to say, I wasn’t as fascinated as she was.

It's one of those books that goes between past and present. It's very emotional and heartbreaking I must say, but beautifully written.

Fuller's writing is very fluid, but metaphorical. So, it's something to savour slowly.

It reminded me of Atonement. I really wondered about the characters. Who was Cara really and why do they want Frances in their lives? Why is Frances so socially awkward? And through the end, I didn't see the twist. So, it was very successful at that front.

It was a very atmospheric novel however and I really loved the bitter oranges added to the story. It was a good, metaphoric story telling.

All in all, I really enjoyed Fuller's new book. Very gripping, page turner. Very much recommended and I will be picking up from her again.

Thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley.

It's fair to say that Bitter Orange was one of those books. You know the ones, where you get excited at the very thought of being able to pick it up and devour it. Where you just know that you are going to get an intensely fabulous experience.

Frances Jellico is at the end of her life. She looks back to a very brief, but life-changing time when she met Peter and Cara. She was commissioned in 1969 to write a report on the garden structures of Lyntons, a rundown country house and there she met Peter, who had been engaged to do something similar with the inside of the house, and Cara his wife. Just the three of them lived in the house during that time and inevitably they started to spend all their time together.

The friendship between the three is what I would call toxic in every way. Vulnerabilities brought to the fore and preyed upon, exploited. At every stage I felt a kind of protectiveness for Frances, a fairly naive and gullible 39 year old. Peter and Cara, on the other hand, are more worldly, eating food and drinking drink that Frances has only heard about. I could sense such foreboding. I knew that the story couldn't end well, but a couple of big surprises left me goggle-eyed.

Bitter Orange is such an atmospheric, powerful novel. It talks of love and loss, passion and voyeurism. Claire Fuller has such a beautiful way with words. Her descriptions on behalf of Frances of that heady summer, the heat, the sense of something lurking in the attic rooms, the over-indulgences, the leading astray, all put me right there with them. And the short interludes, where Frances is at the end of her life, are so moving, so sad, so thoughtful.

The characterisations are fabulous too. There is a strong sense (both metaphorical and literal) of Frances, during the course of her time at Lyntons, throwing off her shackles, becoming unloosened and freer. Ultimately though, despite looking back on those times with some fondness, it also led to her complete undoing.

Bitter Orange is a book to savour (unlike the bitter oranges at Lyntons!). It's one to read slowly and carefully so as to not miss nuances and the exquisite writing. It's full of tension and is really quite unsettling (in the best possible way). I have only good things to say about it - it's a triumph.

This was an amazing read. Absolute Woodoo spell.
I finished last night but still shaken by it. Quite surprised that it's not on Booker long list. I have a few more candidates to read but I'll probably end up voting this in Guardian's Not booker prize selection.

Frances, moves to a rural area to meet with Peter and Cara, and she gets mesmerised by them, and the dynamics of their relationship. She's recently lost her mum and they had a difficult relationship- the details of her family will be unfolded in the book later.
The story goes between back and forth, and old Frances, in what's apparently seems like a death bed, and that summer where she met Peter and Cara, and their lives changed forever.

An unforgettable read, sad and beautiful. Claire Fuller gets better in every book.

3★
“ It was so hard to get it right, the way other people had conversations, back and forth with no effort. I wondered, not for the first time, how it was done.
. . .
. . . she thanked me for listening, and I saw it was that easy, that was all I had to do to make a friend; she wasn’t looking for answers.”

Frances lived for years in a small flat she shared with her ungracious, ungrateful invalid mother. As a young woman, she didn’t cross paths with people often so never really learned the social niceties.

“Four shop people spoke to me with a ‘good morning’, or a ‘thank you’ as they handed over my items or change. I liked to count these things. More than seven was a good day.”

She is also heavy and awkward - we know her well, either from our own lives or many other stories. But she is telling us this herself as she’s wasting away in a hospital bed. As an old lady, she can be quite clever and sneaky, hinting at secrets a visiting vicar keeps waiting for her to reveal but keeping them from him and us.

She reminisces about the time she spent at Lyntons, a grand old country manor of countless rooms, where she was cataloguing the “follies” and value of some of the pieces for its new American owner. She was hoping he’d come and renovate it, but she’s not the only one there.

There is a couple, Peter and Cara, who are living there—let’s be clear, they are all camping there—while Peter is cataloguing the artwork. The vicar was a man she met in the local church who seems pretty interested in her and her “friends”.

This was a kind of interesting premise, although I have to say I thought immediately of young Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, who is sort of “adopted” by his cousin Daisy and her husband and friends and eventually, the wealthy Jay Gatsby, who hosts lavish parties. Daisy fixes Nick up with a friend of hers, but Nick ends up as a sort of intermediary between Daisy and Jay, who is besotted with her.

it’s a familiar scenario, where a younger (usually) person acts as a kind of excuse for a would-be couple to interact. Whether it’s adults in a park watching their kids or a teen couple offering to take a little brother to the movies, so they have an excuse to hang out.

In this story, Frances is a kind of sounding board for both Cara, who is a wild and free Irish girl, and Peter, who is older than Cara and closer in age to Frances. They welcome her to the “home”, show her to her room in the attic, and she tries to settle in.

But there are noises, smells, sounds, and some odd sightings. It’s a setting that is more gothic than Gatsby, but the mystery and intrigue of this one didn’t hit the mark for me. I enjoyed Swimming Lessons last year more than some other readers, and I'm sure there are others who will really enjoy this one. I still liked her writing, which ranges from poetic to amusingly insightful. And I did feel for Frances, caught up as she was by her fantastic new friends.

“There was no wind that afternoon, the lake was a new penny lost in an unmown lawn, and the unseen birds that chirped and twittered in the bushes didn’t disturb a twig. I lowered myself to the concrete – it is never easy for a large woman to sit on the floor, especially one wearing a girdle. She must fold her legs beneath her as a horse does, and there comes a moment where she has to let go and drop, and hope it will work out all right.”

Also true of unfit, older people too! Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

I knew very little about "Bitter Orange" beforehand - and I am glad I did not look for more information, as it meant that I was discovering this book and its twisty-turny narration as I went along. I would definitely recommend it if you like stories about atmospheric houses and secrets. But beware - this book is not like many others. It starts innocently and predictably enough - with people living in a dilapidated stately home for the summer, with friendship, love, laughter and secrets. But you soon find out that nothing is as sure and as obvious as you are led to believe. The characters have secrets, the house has secrets too, and suddenly you are not sure who or what to believe. "Bitter Orange" was atmospheric, sultry and unexpected. A brilliant summer read for hot days, when you want to immerse yourself in a story and get taken for a ride.

https://lynns-books.com/2018/08/16/bitter-orange-by-claire-fuller/
4.5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller and so I danced a little jig of joy when I was approved for a copy of Bitter Orange.

Much to my delight Fuller has managed to once again come up with a gem of a novel. Completely different in terms of style and plot than her debut novel, Bitter Orange speaks of hot summers days during the year of 1969 when a rather introverted woman becomes friends with the decadent couple who share the same building.

Immediately you have a sense of impending doom and that initial suspicion grows, nurtured by the ever increasing sense of tension that Fuller’s prose creates until things come to a dramatic finale.

As the book starts out we make the acquaintance of Frances, now an elderly lady whose health is failing and who as she lies, awaiting death, reminisces with a visiting priest about the Summer of ’69 and the events that took place following the death of her mother.

Frances was 40 when her mother passed away and having spent the majority of her adulthood as a full time carer her life has a feeling of lost opportunity, a certain sadness coupled with the naivety and awkwardness that she now feels in any social situation and reflect her lack of experience. Luckily Frances receives a job offer which involves her spending a number of months in a dilapidated mansion where she will report back to the owner on any noteworthy architectural finds in the extensive grounds. Unexpectedly, on arrival, and having believed that she would be the only person residing at Lynton House she discovers another couple already in situ. Cara, beautiful and exotic, who argues in Italian and loves cooking extravagant meals and Peter, handsome and aloof. The couple, well Peter, has similarly been employed by the owner to check out the fixtures, fittings and any furniture of worth. Frances finds herself immediately in awe of the couple and when they seemingly take her under their wing, inviting her to spend her evenings dining with them she becomes a little bit besotted with the pair. Obsessions, of course, have a way of spiralling out of control and in terms of this little group it soon becomes apparent that something is very much amiss.

The setting for Bitter Orange is just gorgeous. A crumbling mansion, still with many of it’s original features proudly displayed and with a rich history. It’s a gothic delight. The gardens are extensive with all sorts of out buildings, lakes and ornamental bridges all surrounded by overgrown grass, flowers and shrubs just waiting to encroach further and reclaim the space – the whole description just had me wanting to find this place and run around it with abandon trying to discover secrets.

Then we have our characters. They all have secrets. There’s a good deal of twisting and turning going on here and coupled with unreliable narrators, good storytellers and a large dollop of wishful thinking things are set to become a hot mess. I have to give a little shout out to Cara in particular. The moments when she’s weaving tales of her childhood in Ireland are quite mesmerising and I too could have spent a whole afternoon listening to her whilst partaking of a picnic by the lake.

To be honest, I can’t fault this book at all. It’s written in a style that I just love, the characters are so easy to picture and the whole ensemble has an almost casual or accidental elegance and the cherry on the icing is that the story is infused with tension that steadily mounts. There are some real quality moments here where you feel either dread, embarrassment or you want to squirm on behalf of one or others of the characters or implore them to stop.

I can’t really say too much more to be honest and so I find this quite a short review which is in no way a reflection on my feelings for the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this, it’s not my usual fantasy laden read so be warned of that – this may be a gothic story set in a run down country house but there isn’t a ghost, or dragon, in sight.

Anyway, I think if you like nuggets such as Rebecca or The Secret History – and to be clear, I am in no way, shape or form, comparing the content, more the literary style – then I think you’ll enjoy Fuller’s work. For me she’s an author to keep an eye on and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Beautifully written with an artist’s ability to paint with few brushstrokes but produce a dense, atmospheric, multi layered tale of obsession, loneliness, and loss. Frances has never had friends and has been ruled by her cruel and controlling mother until her recent death. That summer, working at the crumbling mansion of a distant American, she is befriended by the quicksilver cara and her partner
Peter. The combination of their needs and personalities builds to an unexpected climax but what really happened, who is telling the truth and when? So many layers, an extraordinary tale that demands reading.

Bitter Orange jumps between the sixties and present day, following Frances as she meets Cara and Peter and becomes enveloped in their lives. Frances moves into the flat above the couple, and finds a spy hole in the floorboards giving her a secret view of their bathroom. A relationship of sorts develops between each of them, and also in the way that they function within their group of three.

I found Bitter Orange slow to get going and found it difficult to like any of the characters. However, the plot improved towards the end and a twist at this point was welcome. There was a delicious dark side to this novel, and it was never quite clear whether Frances was a reliable narrator. I did not see the ending coming, and felt that this further twist was very satisfying.

Thank you to Claire Fuller and Penguin Books for the opportunity to review Bitter Orange.

I very much enjoyed Claire Fuller's previous books but I found this novel slow and far-fetched. I appreciate that it is a genre piece but the ending was melodramatic and the characterisation thin. However there was much to enjoy - the period detail of the house was intriguing and the big reveal about where the main character was living (in the timeline set in the present) was brilliant. I still have every admiration for Claire Fuller's writing, but this novel wasn't for me.

The writing in this book is wonderful. It is lyrical and beautiful, and so it was one of those books that as soon as I started I felt safe with, knowing that there would be no clunky sentences. It's very atmospheric, with the stifling warmth of a long English summer in a run-down country house.

There's a lot to the characters, and the interplay between Frances, Peter and Cara is interesting to read, though I wasn't always quite sure what on earth was going on with Peter and Cara. Part of the story, however, is around the unreliability of these characters, and the confusion over what is true and what is not. I loved the voyeurism of poor Frances with her secret spy hole into Cara and Peter's bathroom. I felt less able to follow the adjacent story of the priest and Frances, as I wasn't always sure if Frances as an old lady was telling us the truth since she seemed to be suffering from dementia, slipping from the past to the present from moment to moment, so I never knew if it really was the priest that she knew or not.

The ending, for me, somehow didn't quite satisfy. I think perhaps that the story travelled too slowly, and so any reveals didn't have quite the impact for me that they might have if the pace had been upped a little. Or perhaps it was just that the style of the writing was so good that the plot just couldn't quite live up to it. It's hard to put my finger on quite what was wrong, but whilst I just kept thinking all the way through 'this is such a good book' at the end I found myself disappointed to be a little nonplussed. BUT it was beautifully written, and I feel like I might want to read it again to pick up on anything I missed first time around.

I'm looking forward to looking up Claire Fuller's other books now.

I am a huge fan of Claire Fuller’s writing, I loved both Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons and couldn’t wait to read her latest novel, Bitter Orange. Every novel of hers I have read has transported me elsewhere, from a remote cabin in a forest to a house on the coast filled with unread books and secrets and I have always been fully immersed in the worlds she creates. In Bitter Orange I was transported to the 1960s, to Lyntons, a stately home bought by a rich American who has commissioned Frances to research the follies in its grounds. It is here that she meets Peter and Cara, two people quite unlike any she has met before. It is a gloriously hot summer and one that will be life-changing for this unlikely trio.

This is a wonderful book which examines what happens when innocence and naivety combine with obsession. Frances is a compelling protagonist whose life until now has been filled as a companion and carer for her mother who has recently died. She arrives at Lyntons in the midst of a heat wave to find a house that has been ransacked by the American troops who were billeted there during the war. Ensconced in an attic room with minimal furniture she discovers that there is a spy hole in the bathroom floor allowing her to see directly into the bathroom beneath. This view into the Cara and Peter’s private space begins an obsession with the couple – their unabashed freedom, vocal disagreements and moments of tenderness and sensuality are intoxicating to cossetted Frances.

The heat of the summer oozes from the pages, it is sultry and sensual and ramps up the claustrophobia and tension. Frances is an unsophisticated and emotionally stunted woman who wilts under the charm of wild, exotic, otherworldly fragile and complicated Cara. It is during these hazy summer days and their developing friendship that the mystery, loss and love at the heart of the book comes into play.

This is a beautifully written book with gorgeous, gorgeous passages that convey longing and sensuality. I could see the house in my mind’s eye – somewhere grand and beautiful but on the inside crumbling and damaged – much like Cara. The writing is evocative and Frances, Peter and Cara are brilliantly drawn. Cara steals the show, but Frances is a compelling and intriguing protagonist and we see everything through her eyes. Her innocence and niaviety means that our initial assesment of Cara and Peter is quite narrow and we are forced to read between the lines. I loved trying to work out the puzzle, loved trying to second guess myself and work out if I really should be feeling unease. But, oh Frances. I could have wept for her and her unsophisticated ways. Her clothes are badly fitting, they belonged to her mother and are decades out of date – I could have wept for her. The contrast between her and Cara is striking;

She had wrapped her hair in a deep blue cloth, a high flat turban that emphasized her cheekbones. I thought she was enchanting. A sparrow or a dove, and me a guinea fowl

It is very hard to review this book without spoiling huge swathes of it as the plotting is so intricate and delicate that it slowly unspools like a thread revealing hidden secrets and mysteries to a stunning denouement. I was entranced by Bitter Orange, it is a book right up my street – mysterious, beautiful and lyrical prose with characters that leap from the page.

Thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication.
Bitter Orange is something that, on the surface, looks lush and attractive but is quite the opposite when you look closely. A bit like the characters within this novel.
It’s 1969 though apart from some references to music it really could have been at any time. Frances Jellicoe has been asked to examine an old estate bought by a wealthy American. Burdened by caring for her mother, Frances jumps at the opportunity and becomes entangled with the glamorous couple living below her who are - it’s clear - keeping their own secrets.
The central trio spend the summer amusing themselves, resting and we learn that not everything is as it seems. Yet nothing prepares us for the dramatic climax.
While I felt a growing sense of unease with the story and the situation the characters were in, the decision to open with Frances as an old woman facing death and recalling the events of this infamous summer made this an odd read. The timeframe did, on occasion, become confusing and it meant the big revelation about Frances didn’t feel quite as dramatic as it perhaps should be. The depiction of the characters felt like we only ever scratch the surface of each, and it might have been good to know more.
Ultimately, this is a well-written story but one which didn’t quite captivate me as I’d hoped it would.

The languid, heady summer; the intoxicating, worldly and sensuous couple; the repressed protagonist- Claire Fuller takes established themes and makes something wholly original in this captivating read. ‘Bitter Orange’ will rightfully take its place on many a summer holiday reading list. Its denouement is shocking and a suitably rewarding end to a claustrophobic, engrossing novel.

Beautufully written and very descriptive - I could imagine myself at the manor house in both of its settings.
Unfortunately I gelt the story was predictable and didn't really have anyhing that pulled my attention in and made it un-put-downable.
An easy rwad thst woukd be a perfect holiday book.