PAULA'S REVIEW:
I am so glad I discovered books by Jaime Jo Wright. I have read all of them. She is an automatic read for me.
“How did one not fear evil? It was so real, so active, that not fearing it seemed foolish.”
Ms. Wright evokes foreboding from the first page. I frequently found myself stopping and saying * Oh No!* out loud. Her writing style is*creepy good*. She spins a spooky, intricate, dual-time novel that never disappoints. This one deals with a remote, cliffside mansion on the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tentacles of evil and greed reach down through time from 1885 to the present day. A tale of missing Civil War gold, a ghost girl who guards it, and unexplained kidnappings years later will keep you turning pages.
The two storylines came together in a satisfying way and added another layer of mystery to the Civil War tales and the intriguing connection to the Upper Peninsula.
Besides the main characters in each time period, I liked the portrayal of Kailey’s autistic brother Jude. He played an important part in the story and the insight into this often misunderstood condition was handled with compassion.
The author conveys a realistic picture of superstition and the steadying faith that is needed to combat it. “The world is broken. God can fix it. So stick to Him and stop trying to do it yourself.”
*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House on behalf of the author. I was not required to give a favorable review. All opinions are my own.*I give this 5+ stars and a solid faith thread
REBECCA'S REVIEW:
"The cliff beckoned to her. Its flat outcropping like a ledge where one might determine which evil was worse. To live or to die? Perhaps they were of equal evil, only one was guaranteed to plague, where the other was deceptively final. There was a peace in finality . . . . . . . . oh, that she was worth fighting for . . . . . . "
Driven to despair after realizing that her father had only released her from one prison into the cells of another, Alexandria Fontaine had been given an ultimatum before arriving at the remote cliffside manor along the northern shores of Lake Superior; "find it". . . . "it" referring to a treasure of an unknown nature, that once secured meant a precarious freedom from her family's cruel clutches. Assuming her father's nefarious pirating habits along the lake had resulted in a windfall profit, that had in turn had been stolen by his one of his now deceased business partners, Adria determined to dig deeper into the secrets of Foxglove Manor, despite being repeatedly warned to leave the past in the past. Turns out, it was a warning worth heeding.
"And since when were stories of ghosts, gold, and modern-day kidnappings surrounding an old manor ever anything but a classic story written on the musty pages of forgotten books?"
Many years after Adria Fontaine's stay at Foxglove Manor, Kailey Gibson returns to the place where her family began its eventual descent towards utter destruction. A childhood vacation there had morphed into such a severe nightmare that Kailey's subconscious had blocked it from memory, prompting her autistic brother Jude to incessantly write down disjointed numbers and letters that could, to the trained eye, be deemed as some sort of code. Employed as an aide in the now senior convalescent home, Kailey hopes to find some answers. Instead, she uncovers many more questions.
Two women living centuries apart. One place in common. Foxglove Manor.
With its dark, gothic-like undertones, one would think that delving deep into the troubled psyches of the two young women in this story would make the narrative lose its luster; after all, who wants to be surrounded by death and danger at every turn. Surprisingly, the opposite was true. . . . . because, speaking of opposites . . . . the opposite of death is life . . . . and despair's opposite turns out to be hope. Likewise, hate is dwarfed by love and lies disappear within the truth. And the rock of salvation is never more precious than on the edge of a cliff.
*I received a copy of this book from the author and publisher. I also purchased a copy. 4.5 stars
Adria Fontaine has been sent to recover goods her father pirated on the Great Lakes during the war. But when she arrives at Foxglove Manor--a stone house on a cliff overlooking Lake Superior--Adria senses wickedness hovering over the property. The mistress of Foxglove is an eccentric and seemingly cruel old woman who has filled her house with dangerous secrets, ones that may cost Adria her life.
Present day.
Kailey Gibson is a new nurse's aide at a senior home in a renovated old stone manor. Kidnapped as a child, she has nothing but locked-up memories of secrets and death, overshadowed by the chilling promise from her abductors that they would return. When the residents of Foxglove start sharing stories of whispers in the night, hidden treasure, and a love willing to kill, it becomes clear this home is far from a haven. She'll have to risk it all to banish the past's demons, including her own.
Available in digital ebook, paperback, hardcover and audiobook:
Buy On The Cliffs of Foxglove Manor at Amazon
Buy On The Cliffs of Foxglove Manor at Christianbook.com
Buy On The Cliffs of Foxglove Manor at Baker Book House
No comments:
Post a Comment