The Girl in the Photograph
As seen:
By Kate Riordan
avg rating
2 reviews
For fans of Kate Mosse and Kate Morton comes a haunting novel about two women separated by decades but entwined by fate.
When Alice Eveleigh arrives at Fiercombe Manor during the long, languid summer of 1933, she finds a house steeped in mystery and brimming with secrets. Sadness permeates its empty rooms and the isolated valley seems crowded with ghosts, none more alluring than Elizabeth Stanton whose only traces remain in a few tantalisingly blurred photographs. Why will no one speak of her? What happened a generation ago to make her vanish?
As the sun beats down relentlessly, Alice becomes ever more determined to unearth the truth about the girl in the photograph – and stop her own life from becoming an eerie echo of Elizabeth’s . . .
Lifelong fans of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca will adore Kate Riordan’s exquisite novel, The Girl in the Photograph.
Praise for The Girl in the Photograph:
‘Full of slow-burning tension’ Essentials
‘A sweeping saga of secrets and ghosts’ Good Housekeeping
‘A well executed, brooding, creepy atmosphere’ Sunday Mirror
‘A prickly story full of tension’ Sunday Express
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"I found it very atmospheric, suspenseful, and in parts really quite creepy! A real page turner with a satisfying ending. Would look out for more books from this author" This quote from Lucy, a member of Houghton Reading Group sums up quite neatly how we felt about this book.
The setting of Fiercombe Manor started out as somewhere very English surrounded by beautiful gardens, but as the story progressed more secrets are revealed and there were some genuinely spooky moments. The characters were very well drawn and you cared about them, there were some lovely passages of prose. The best bit for our Reading Group was how well Kate Riorden captured those moments when you scare yourself - everyone does it, running upstairs fast when the last light is turned out, or leaving quiet empty spaces in old buildings because you 'spooked' yourself. This was all done without any horror or gore, it was all tricks of the mind - which it usually is anyway!
We would recommend this book to others to read, and have in fact passed all our copies on to friends and family.
Although i did find this book very gripping and hard to put down, I did at times feel that some of the writing and descriptions were slightly over the top and exagerated. At times the writer seemed to 'tell' rather than 'show' which slightly took away the air of the mystery. It did have a good plot though, but it was at times repetitive. It makes a good light read.
