Beginning in 1969, Amber Alton is 14 years old and staying with her family at their summer house Pencraw Hall in Cornwall. Affectionately known as Black Rabbit Hall, Amber lives with her parents, twin brother Toby, and siblings Kitty and Barney and loves spending summers running wild in the gardens, woods and beach nearby.
I love a novel where the estate or family home is essentially its own character and in Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase, that has certainly been created here. Although the image of the property on this enticing gothic looking cover is a little too manicured and not how I imagined Black Rabbit Hall at all.
Here's a better description by Amber:
"Nothing changes that much. Time goes syrupy slow. The family joke is that a Black Rabbit hour lasts twice as long as a London one, but you don't get a quarter of the things done. The other thing about Black Rabbit Hall is that when you're here it feels like you've been here for centuries but when you leave it feels like the entire holiday happened in one afternoon. Maybe that's why nobody cares that the clocks are all set wrong. Not much ever happens." Page 25This is a split narrative novel and in the present, Lorna is looking for a venue to hold her wedding. Both points of view are told in the first person, but I found myself eager to return to the 1960s and the action taking place there as observed by Amber.
"I think that adults must get sort of worn away over time, like rocks out at sea, but remain who they are, just slower and greyer with those funny vertical wrinkles in front of their ears. But the young are a different shape from one week to the next. To know us is to run alongside us, like someone trying to shout through the window of a moving train." Page 306Eventually the two timelines come together in a sense and I enjoyed the tension driven by the tragedy and discovering the deeply held family secrets along the way.
This is my first novel by Eve Chase, but certainly won't be my last and I'm looking forward to reading The Birdcage next. Black Rabbit Hall is highly recommended for fans of historical fiction and with an endorsement from Kate Morton, who could resist?
