I am delighted to be featuring an historical romance on the blog today, The House in the Hollow by Allie Cresswell. This is a prequel to Tall Chimneys. You can read my review of this book here and also read an interview with author Allie Cresswell.
The Talbots are wealthy. But their wealth is from ‘trade’.
With neither ancient lineage nor title, they struggle for entrance into elite
Regency society. Finally, aided by an impecunious viscount, they gain access to
the drawing rooms of England’s most illustrious houses.
Mrs Talbot intends her daughter Jocelyn to marry well, to
eliminate the stain of the family’s ignoble beginnings. But the young men
Jocelyn meets are vacuous, seeing Jocelyn as merely a substantial dowry. Only
Lieutenant Barnaby Willow sees the real Jocelyn, but he is deployed to war. The
hypocrisy of fashionable society repulses Jocelyn—beneath the courtly manners
she finds deceit, dissipation and vice.
Jocelyn stumbles upon and then is embroiled in a sordid
scandal which threatens utter disgrace for the Talbot family. Humiliated and
dishonoured, she is sent to a remote house hidden in a hollow of the Yorkshire
moors, irrevocably separated from family, friends and any hope of hearing about
the lieutenant’s fate.
My Thoughts
This is a real mystery to uncover. Jocelyn has been exiled out to an old house in the middle of nowhere it seems. Slowly, you unravel the events which have brought her there and there are some memorable surprises on the way. I was genuinely shocked at one point in the story and realised that I had been misdirected skilfully by the author.
The house, of course, takes centre stage for most of the story. It seems to offer an other worldly setting and a level of protection to its inhabitants. There are several longish descriptions of the surrounding land which adds to the atmosphere and feeling of abandonment. There are some interesting thoughts on the class structure and social classes on which the society is built and it seems that through traumatic events, people begin to reevaluate their opinions of others.
In short: Family loyalties are stretched to the limit
About the Author
Allie Cresswell was born in Stockport, UK and began writing
fiction as soon as she could hold a pencil.
She did a BA in English Literature at Birmingham University
and an MA at Queen Mary College, London.
She has been a print-buyer, a pub landlady, a book-keeper,
run a B & B and a group of boutique holiday cottages. Nowadays Allie writes
full time having retired from teaching literature to lifelong learners.
She has two grown-up children, one granddaughter and two
grandsons, is married to Tim and lives in Cumbria, NW England.
Tall Chimneys is the sixth of her novels to be published.
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