Beloved Girls was a brick of a book at over 450+ pages, but it didn't feel like it as I was reading. Things flowed well, and surprisingly enough with all the different characters and timelines, With three timelines, I was still able to keep up without getting them confused. I typically don't read a lot of goth type mysteries, but it had that feel to me with the grand family, big country house, and the ritual with the bees. It is a title I have recommended to many. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Honestly i really really didn’t like this book. It is SO slowly paced. I ALWAYS finish books but I just couldn’t do it. It just SO long.

The Hunter Family are a family seeped in generational rites and rituals done annually at the end of summer to celebrate St. Bartholomew’s Day and to assure the continued bounty of the land and the preservation of their dynasty, in Harriet Evans, dual-timeline atmospheric novel, “The Beloved Girls.”

According to local legend, in the 1700s a mysterious priest originally established a chapel and home on the land that would eventually become the Hunter mansion. During his the time, the area was know as a wreckers community—for purposefully stranding and robbing merchant ships along the rocky coast—and for the leper colony living in the adjacent woods.

After finding bees building hives in his chapel, and in an efforts to get parishioners to attend his congregation, legend has it that the priest made a pact with the devil. This forsaken promise ensured that annually the congregation would take part of the bee’s honey, but leave half for the bees as sustenance through the winter. As long as that tradition was honored, the family who lived on the land, the congregation community, and the bees would live harmoniously and thrive.

Two hundred years later, the Hunter patriarch is still enforcing the ancient rituals, although the old church is in ruins and the bees seem angrier and are swarming more frequently. It appears that not only is the chapel in ruins, but that rot of the soul is destroying the Hunter family from within. Could this be what is causing the disturbance within the bees?

JoyReaderGirl1 graciously thanks NetGalley, Author Harriet Evans, and Publisher
Grand Central Publishing an imprint of Hatchette Books for this advanced reader’s copy for review.

Set in the 1980s the story of Janey and her entanglement with the unconventional Hunter family at Vanes, a country house on the coast in Somerset, twists and turns as the reader struggles to keep up. In the present day Catherine Lestrange begins to have a nervous breakdown. She abandons her French husband at Waterloo station and sets off on a quest to right the wrongs of the past.

So far so good. I was gripped by the story although I guessed the ending more or less about half way through. The characters were not sufficiently differentiated : mad, abused women, violent controlling men, mental health problems galore … all merged across the years. Perhaps that was the point.

A couple of things annoyed me: first why was her husband called Davide with an ‘e’? Not a French spelling. The French name is spelt as in English: David. Was it so that readers would pronounce it properly ‘Dah-veed’ à la française? Similarly Catrine. Just quibbles but weirdly annoying in the midst of a good story.

A brilliant read that had me engrossed right from the very start. This is a complete page turner that i couldn’t put down.

I REALLY wanted to like this book - the start of it was sooo good and it had me hooked from the first few pages. I think the "ritual" side of things was a great idea but it got very repititive and a little confusing, Overall the ending wasn't very enjoyable.

I enjoyed the beginning chapters of this book with the mystery surrounding Catherine this successful barrister, wife, and mother and a break in at her house. Then the story of Janey and her father visiting this family and their mysterious estate where there is a chapel that is full of bees that they do a ritual for. It all made for what I thought was going to be a wonderfully gothic mystery tale reminiscent of Eve Chase. While the mystery was good and the coming of age story of Janey, Kitty and Joss was ok, it just simply was too long and drawn out. Unfortunately the ending was somewhat easy to predict and the formula for a gothic coming of age story was too by the book. I am giving this book three stars because I really did enjoy the hook and the mystery but a more concise story would have made it even better. Thank you to the publisher and Netflix for an advanced ecopy of this book for an honest review.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. A good women's fiction novel. Recommend

The Beloved Girls by Harriet Evans was an extraordinary read! It was dark and twisted, took me to a roller coaster ride of anticipation, confusion and traumatic events.

Janey is moving to Vanes. She thought this will be the place where she can heal, manage her grief and find a place that she can finally belong. Well, Vanes is not a home. The Hunter’s were there and their sick family rituals. The people seems to be all angry and mad and somewhat violent. They were dysfunctional in all the right sense.

This book is slow. And by slow, I mean time has to be invested. The ending is satisfying and makes the almost 450 pages worth every minute. The writing is flawless and I was impressed with how the author put the three different timelines fit together like puzzle pieces slipping into a shape.

Thank you Netgalley for the copy in exchange of a review.

I found this to be extremely slow and sort of disjointed.

There were so many sections that were just filler. Totally unncessary.

Also. The triggers in this book are insane….
Rape, pedophilia, suicide, it goes on.

Loved this title. My "gothic" mystery readers will adore it. I have added it to my collection and can heartily recommend it to several of my regular patrons!

I was so shocked how involved I became in this book. The darkness and the intrigue kept me reading late into the night. Although I got scared and had to run into my bedroom, which shows me how much this book got to me! This was a really well written Gothic novel and I enjoyed it!

The idea behind this book was so intriguing and in certain parts of the execution I couldn't put it down, however, there were more times that were so slow and just dragged out more than was necessary. It took away from the overall effect for me. I did like the style of writing by this author and am willing to read more of their work.

Interesting book that kept my attention throughout. Some of the time jumps were a little difficult to follow, but nevertheless a compelling read. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy horror-tinged mystery and atmospheric thrillers. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC.

I started off enjoying this book, but then it lost me. I didn’t feel invested in either the characters or the mystery. I DNF at 50%.

This book is full of family drama and has all the gothic vibes. It’s very atmospheric and I loved it. It tells the story through several time periods and perspectives.

# The Beloved Girls is by # Harriet Evans and just came out in May. It's one of my favorites so far for 2022.The cover is beautiful as is the story. Perfect for those who enjoy women's fiction with a wonderful mystery spin.
Description
It's a funny old house. They have this ceremony every summer... At a very old chapel on the grounds. The Hunters keep bees in there. They open the combs, taste the honey. Half for them and half for us.....
Thank you for the advance copy,
# Netgalley and # Grand Central Publishing

The Beloved Girls
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 (Rounded up to 4 ⭐️)
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 5/10/22
Author: Harriet Evans
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 464
Goodreads Rating: 3.84

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing a digital copy of the book for me to read in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Catherine, a successful barrister, vanishes from a train station on the eve of her anniversary. The answer lies in the events of the hot, seismic summer of 1989, at Vanes - a mysterious West Country manor house - where a young girl, Jane Lestrange, arrives to stay with the gilded, grand Hunter family, and where a devastating tragedy will unfold. Over the summer, as an ancient family ritual looms closer, Janey falls for each member of the family in turn. She and Kitty, the eldest daughter of the house, will forge a bond that decades later, is still shaping the present . . .

My Thoughts: The story is narrated by various characters and at different timelines from the past of 1950 and 1989 and the present, told from each character’s perspective, which I found intriguing. The characters are well developed however, are unreliable, ambiguous, dark, and twisted, which makes for a good book. The three timelines seem to be unrelated, but they really come together and just work for this book. The author’s writing is mysterious, creative, and intriguing, even disturbing. I really enjoyed this book and overall it was a good book.

DNF at 58%

I can't anymore. The book started interestingly enough with Catherine the lawyer (judge?) dealing with a break-in at her home that may be linked to her past. But then it just started to draaaaaag.

And then we go back in time to Catherine's childhood with an eccentric wealthy family obsessed with a family tradition about the bees and honey on their property, and it became even more boring. Like, there's so much drama around this song and the beloved girls and like, enough already.

But fine, I was sticking around to see what happens at that bee ceremony that turned out to be so fateful for adult Catherine. And THEN the narrative goes even FURTHER back in time to the childhood of the mother in that family, and HER mother. And I presume the Simon who helps them is Catherine's father but I really can't be bothered to return to the beginning to confirm. Simon is just another new character I have to care about and i really don't.

And then I see I'm just barely halfway through the book and honestly, I really, really don't care anymore. Part of me is still curious what happens to adult Catherine and her husband and kids, coz I actually found THAT part of the story and THOSE characters interesting. But ehhh I don't care enough to keep flipping on until I find out.

I'm sure some readers will enjoy this, and be drawn into the quasi-Gothic feel of the flashbacks. I just got horribly bored, and there's still SO MUCH story left to go, so I'm tapping out.

Thanks to the publisher for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

As Harriet Evans’ The Beloved Girls begins, Catherine seems to be slowly unraveling. The verdict in the last case she participated in ruled against her defendant; she believes she sees a woman she has presumed was dead; and she thinks her only recourse is to flee her happy marriage. The Beloved Girls takes the reader through several timelines and POVs to tell the story of the Hunters, an extremely eccentric family whose history seems to take on ancient mythological proportion and Simon Lestrange and his daughter Janey.

Prior to reading The Beloved Girls, I had read five other Harriet Evans novels and have to admit that I came to this one thinking entirely of those other novels, which I loved, without really reading the synopsis, not that that would have given me much pause, but perhaps I would have been more prepared for the subsequent read.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how it happened but I’ve been reading three different books written by UK authors and the one resounding similarity between all three is that they just dragged on. Perhaps it was a function of the pandemic but these books seemed to want to belabor points or cover unnecessary territory.

The Beloved Girls moved between interesting character studies and history to melodrama, from a gothic nature to an uglier bullying element. While I found the history of how the bees came to be kept by the Hunters to be interesting as well as the story of the meeting between Simon and Sylvia, I wished that the plot hadn't meandered quite so much.

If I had written this review immediately after finishing the novel, I might have given it a better rating because the last third made up for so very much. When the ending is good, you can forgive so much and I think that’s quite possible with The Beloved Girls. But time made me recall how frustrated I felt for a good bit of the novel. I am willing to concede that perhaps I missed something that would account for what I considered to be disjointed plotting and why I would have thought some additional editing might have been necessary because despite flaws this is one novel that sticks with you even past “The End.”

This one may be in the vein of, despite some flaws, it’s still a good read.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.