#BookReview The Wildling Sisters by Eve Chase (@evepchase) @PutnamBooks

The Wildling Sisters by Eve Chase
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nineteen fifty-nine. The four Wilde sisters, Isla, Violet, Maggie and Dot, are spending the summer in the Cotswolds, at Applecote Manor. Affectionately called the Wildlings, the sisters are exceptionally close, yet this year there's a sense of nostalgia. Things are changing.

Except for Applecote itself, a house that seems frozen in time. The sisters haven't been there in five years; not since their cousin Audrey mysteriously vanished.

But as they discover Applecote's dark secrets and new temptations, the sisters begin to grow apart. Until the night everything spirals out of control and the Wildlings form a bond far thicker than blood...

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I read Eve Chase debut book, Black Rabbit Hall last year and it was such a great book! So, when The Wildling Sisters showed up on NetGalley didn't I hesitate to request the book. Now, I have to admit that this book's cover isn't really a favorite of mine and if not the name of the author had been familiar had I perhaps not have been interested in the book. I just think that the three faces on the cover so oddly placed, like why are the third girls face under the other two's? It's puzzling!

However, the cover is the only thing that I have to complain about for the story is superb. Even better than Black Rabbit Hall's and that book was really good. I was instantly pulled into the story and I loved both timelines. Eve Chase has an ability to write that makes it hard to stop reading the book, it feels like you just breeze through the pages, and loved both the story in 1959 about the sisters who are living with the aunt and uncle on the Applecote Manor during the summer after their mother has decided to work abroad. The time has practically stood still in the house since the day five years before when their cousin Audrey disappeared. What happened to her? In the present story has a Jessie and her family moved into the house. For Jessie is this a dream house and a chance to start over fresh after they have lived in a house where her husband lived with his first wife who tragically died. But, soon she wonders if they made a mistake when her stepdaughter tells her that 50 years before a young girl disappeared from the house and was never seen again...

I love books with two timelines, and The Wildling Sisters is a fabulous story. I liked both the story in the past and the present and I found the ending very emotional. It's such a beautifully written story, filled with both happiness and sadness.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

#BookReview Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amber Alton knows that the hours pass differently at Black Rabbit Hall, her London family’s country estate, where no two clocks read the same. Summers there are perfect, timeless. Not much ever happens. Until, of course, it does.

More than three decades later, Lorna is determined to be married within the grand, ivy-covered walls of Pencraw Hall, known as Black Rabbit Hall among the locals. But as she’s drawn deeper into the overgrown grounds, half-buried memories of her mother begin to surface and Lorna soon finds herself ensnared within the manor’s labyrinthine history, overcome with an insatiable need for answers about her own past and that of the once-happy family whose memory still haunts the estate.

Stunning and atmospheric, this debut novel is a thrilling spiral into the hearts of two women separated by decades but inescapably linked by the dark and tangled secrets of Black Rabbit Hall.

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I love books with parallel storylines, especially those that involve grand houses, a mystery that has to be solved and skeleton in the closet. So, when I saw this book I just knew I had to read it. And, I wasn't disappointed. I was instantly hooked and couldn't wait out to find out more about what really happened in the 60s that could destroy a family so.

Sometimes one storyline can be weaker than the other, but this time, I found both equally interesting to read. In the 60s are Amber Alton's trials and tribulations touching to read about. She is a young girl that is desperately trying to keep her family together, but at the same time, she is on the verge of womanhood and sometimes actions can have dire consequences. Lorna, on the other hand, is moving forward in life after suddenly losing her mother, a loss that is still raw for her. And, Black Rabbit Hall has a special connection to her. She has photos of her there with her mother standing at the house. Why was her mother so eager to travel just to Black Rabbit Hall when she was little?

I liked the book very much. I was intrigued by the mystery of the Alton family and the mystery of Lorna's connection to the mansion. I think this book will appeal to those that like me like to read books about secrets, old mansions and the people that used to live there. It's a well-written book and I hope to read more from Eve Chase!
I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review!