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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Don't expect to have your City of Light experience with this book. Here are my takeaways:
-Historical stuff, enjoyed it! I learned what an anchoress was. Damn.
-Libraries and archives - if you were a kid like me who fantasized about being left overnight in your town's public library and having a whole night to read and research, you'll love the archive scenes.
-Gaslighting husbands - Good lord, is Kevin an a-hole. And her reaction to his "suffering" is just unbelievable. Woman please.
-Challenging neurodivergent kids: okaaaay. Help exists, get some. And for goodness sake, let your kid's caretaker know about his behaviors. No matter how special and bright he is, it's just irresponsible to not say "and sometimes he punches people and stabs them with scissors."
-Elderly benevolent uncles in lavender marriages: I want one like Christopher.
-Dogs: Duncan is the best character in the book, especially near the end when he intercedes in one of the "incidents" and heroically defuses everything.
-Quirky and brash American friends who yell at cafe workers because the cafe sells out of chocolate croissants early in the day: Get your butt out of bed early if you want the good stuff from the market. And, main character, why in the world would you admire this behavior and chase her down to become her friend?
Still, read it! Sometimes yelling at characters is cathartic, and you'll get some good history while you're at it.
-Historical stuff, enjoyed it! I learned what an anchoress was. Damn.
-Libraries and archives - if you were a kid like me who fantasized about being left overnight in your town's public library and having a whole night to read and research, you'll love the archive scenes.
-Gaslighting husbands - Good lord, is Kevin an a-hole. And her reaction to his "suffering" is just unbelievable. Woman please.
-Challenging neurodivergent kids: okaaaay. Help exists, get some. And for goodness sake, let your kid's caretaker know about his behaviors. No matter how special and bright he is, it's just irresponsible to not say "and sometimes he punches people and stabs them with scissors."
-Elderly benevolent uncles in lavender marriages: I want one like Christopher.
-Dogs: Duncan is the best character in the book, especially near the end when he intercedes in one of the "incidents" and heroically defuses everything.
-Quirky and brash American friends who yell at cafe workers because the cafe sells out of chocolate croissants early in the day: Get your butt out of bed early if you want the good stuff from the market. And, main character, why in the world would you admire this behavior and chase her down to become her friend?
Still, read it! Sometimes yelling at characters is cathartic, and you'll get some good history while you're at it.
What an amazing story! I enjoyed reading a story with such a relatable main character. All the characters were very well done and seemed to jump off the page. I love the author’s choice to not gloss over the gross and ugly things. These were sometimes the most fascinating things to learn! I also enjoyed the way the author approached the subject of religion in this story. I managed to learn something new about my own faith’s history! I really appreciated the author’s choice to explore history, but set the story in the present. I feel that it really helped to make the story more relatable.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
✨ Review ✨ Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer
Hannah and her neurodiverse son Nicky arrive at Ashton Hall to spend time with her uncle Christopher, whose health is in decline. Nicky finds a hidden skeleton in Ashton Hall (which now is both historic site and has several small apartments for people like Christopher to live on site), and sets an investigation in motion about who this woman was and why she died bricked into a room in a hidden wing of the house.
Throughout the book, Hannah, Nicky, and a supporting cast of characters explore a treasure trove of sources to try to solve this mystery. Bringing in financial ledgers, library registers, commonplace books, and other ephemera from Ashton Hall, Belfer takes on a journey in understanding religious conflict, domestic life, and familiar norms in Tudor England.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: historical mystery told in contemporary times
Location: around Cambridge, UK
Pub Date: Out now!
As a historian, I love how this showcased fictional historical sources in the book. While everything came together perhaps a bit too neatly, I loved what this showed about the historical process and about how preconceived notions shape what and how we research. The pacing of this book is a little long and drawn out, but I loved it for that. I really enjoyed this book and the mystery and exploration it took me on!
Read this if you like:
⭕️ historic library registers -- what would people in and around a big property have been reading in Tudor times?
⭕️ French drains and other fascinating historical tidbits
⭕️ mysteries where primary source research saves the day
⭕️ old British houses
⭕️ neurodiverse characters
Thanks to @LaurenBelfer1 and Suzy Approved Book Tours for a copy of this book!
Hannah and her neurodiverse son Nicky arrive at Ashton Hall to spend time with her uncle Christopher, whose health is in decline. Nicky finds a hidden skeleton in Ashton Hall (which now is both historic site and has several small apartments for people like Christopher to live on site), and sets an investigation in motion about who this woman was and why she died bricked into a room in a hidden wing of the house.
Throughout the book, Hannah, Nicky, and a supporting cast of characters explore a treasure trove of sources to try to solve this mystery. Bringing in financial ledgers, library registers, commonplace books, and other ephemera from Ashton Hall, Belfer takes on a journey in understanding religious conflict, domestic life, and familiar norms in Tudor England.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: historical mystery told in contemporary times
Location: around Cambridge, UK
Pub Date: Out now!
As a historian, I love how this showcased fictional historical sources in the book. While everything came together perhaps a bit too neatly, I loved what this showed about the historical process and about how preconceived notions shape what and how we research. The pacing of this book is a little long and drawn out, but I loved it for that. I really enjoyed this book and the mystery and exploration it took me on!
Read this if you like:
⭕️ historic library registers -- what would people in and around a big property have been reading in Tudor times?
⭕️ French drains and other fascinating historical tidbits
⭕️ mysteries where primary source research saves the day
⭕️ old British houses
⭕️ neurodiverse characters
Thanks to @LaurenBelfer1 and Suzy Approved Book Tours for a copy of this book!
I chose to read this because Alka Joshi (The Henna Artist) mentioned during one of her author talks that it was the book she had most recently read.
I wasn’t very impressed. I felt like there was far too much going on for a narrative of one woman’s summer. She’s an American visiting England to be with a relative (who may or may not be her birth father) for his last days before dying of cancer. She learns her husband is bisexual and has been involved in a long term affair with a man she thought was a good friend. She has a 9 year old neurodivergent son who has violent episodes which have the potential for serious harm to himself and others. She has a one night stand. Her son finds a skeleton bricked up in a hidden room in the house they’re staying in. Plus, lets add a little more drama to her backstory by having her be fatherless (her mother wanted a child but not a husband) and having her Jewish grandparents shot by Nazis.
So she’s coping with Christopher dying, her husband’s betrayal, the difficulty of raising her son, a financial crisis if she chooses divorce, fear of her son after he injures her twice, guilt that she doesn’t always know what to do for her son, guilt over whether she needs to warn others about her son, guilt over her affair, a part time job, finishing off her PhD dissertation, and a compulsion to learn more about the woman whose skeleton was found. She researches the history of plague & religious conflicts in Tudor England as well as household records for that period and much of this is shared with the reader.
I think there was too much breadth and not enough depth. I never really empathized with or came to care about Hannah, the main character, because she just kept rocketing from crisis to crisis. I was far more interested in the life of Isabella, the skeleton.
I liked the setting (classic Gothic) and I liked the historical details. I would have preferred a dual timeline approach with a simplified story for Hannah and more about Isabella.
I wasn’t very impressed. I felt like there was far too much going on for a narrative of one woman’s summer. She’s an American visiting England to be with a relative (who may or may not be her birth father) for his last days before dying of cancer. She learns her husband is bisexual and has been involved in a long term affair with a man she thought was a good friend. She has a 9 year old neurodivergent son who has violent episodes which have the potential for serious harm to himself and others. She has a one night stand. Her son finds a skeleton bricked up in a hidden room in the house they’re staying in. Plus, lets add a little more drama to her backstory by having her be fatherless (her mother wanted a child but not a husband) and having her Jewish grandparents shot by Nazis.
So she’s coping with Christopher dying, her husband’s betrayal, the difficulty of raising her son, a financial crisis if she chooses divorce, fear of her son after he injures her twice, guilt that she doesn’t always know what to do for her son, guilt over whether she needs to warn others about her son, guilt over her affair, a part time job, finishing off her PhD dissertation, and a compulsion to learn more about the woman whose skeleton was found. She researches the history of plague & religious conflicts in Tudor England as well as household records for that period and much of this is shared with the reader.
I think there was too much breadth and not enough depth. I never really empathized with or came to care about Hannah, the main character, because she just kept rocketing from crisis to crisis. I was far more interested in the life of Isabella, the skeleton.
I liked the setting (classic Gothic) and I liked the historical details. I would have preferred a dual timeline approach with a simplified story for Hannah and more about Isabella.
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
I loved the beginning of this story - Hannah with her son Nicky (who is undefined but probably on the spectrum), arrive at an English manor house for the summer. He discovers a secret tunnel and rooms, as well as a skeleton. Hannah asks around to try to figure out what may have happened to the skeleton.
Much of the rest of the book is the relationship between mother and son, and coping with difficult child behaviors, and the effects they cause on relationships. In addition, Hannah’s marriage isn’t what she thought, and she opens her mind to other ideas of marriage.
I feel like it really could be edited down quite a bit… also not a fan of multiple adultery situations.
Hearing her talk about the book, she mentioned her son inspired the character in the book, and that she wanted to talk about mothering an autistic child. She also mentioned living in England and different manor homes she visited; how she took pieces of each of them and created the manor for this book. She loves describing places so she can see them like a movie.
“Who gets to decide what’s normal, anyway?” Ch 33
I felt like this was a central question to the book… in a family, a marriage, for children… who decides what is normal?
“That’s the point of books, isn’t it? To be passed from hand to hand, until they fall apart. Part of the great river of life.” Ch 12
“Everyone I met seemed to be performing in a play. Each had a well-defined part. Even the way the two women addressed each other as Dr. Tinsley and Mrs. Gardner seemed to be an aspect of their performance. What was my part? Ward of Mr. Eckersley. Harmless American. I bristled at having my role determined for me, rather than creating it for myself—an example of how American I truly was.” Ch 3
Much of the rest of the book is the relationship between mother and son, and coping with difficult child behaviors, and the effects they cause on relationships. In addition, Hannah’s marriage isn’t what she thought, and she opens her mind to other ideas of marriage.
I feel like it really could be edited down quite a bit… also not a fan of multiple adultery situations.
Hearing her talk about the book, she mentioned her son inspired the character in the book, and that she wanted to talk about mothering an autistic child. She also mentioned living in England and different manor homes she visited; how she took pieces of each of them and created the manor for this book. She loves describing places so she can see them like a movie.
“Who gets to decide what’s normal, anyway?” Ch 33
I felt like this was a central question to the book… in a family, a marriage, for children… who decides what is normal?
“That’s the point of books, isn’t it? To be passed from hand to hand, until they fall apart. Part of the great river of life.” Ch 12
“Everyone I met seemed to be performing in a play. Each had a well-defined part. Even the way the two women addressed each other as Dr. Tinsley and Mrs. Gardner seemed to be an aspect of their performance. What was my part? Ward of Mr. Eckersley. Harmless American. I bristled at having my role determined for me, rather than creating it for myself—an example of how American I truly was.” Ch 3
challenging
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated