Synopsis
Ellie Pringle has spent endless hours and countless dollars working with a therapist to remember the lost years of her childhood. She’s baffled and more than a little intrigued when the grandmother she hasn’t seen in thirty-four years dies and leaves her a fortune. The time has come to face her past in person. Still reeling from a recent breakup of a long-term relationship, and with nothing to keep her in San Francisco, Ellie packs her meager belongings and boards a plane for the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Standing in the entryway of her grandmother’s antebellum home on South Battery Street in Charleston, Ellie faces the first of many ghosts who will soon haunt her. On her first night in the creepy, creaking mansion, as she’s perusing the titles in a dusty bookcase, she comes across her deceased mother’s leather-bound journal. Her mother’s words create more unanswered questions and send her on a quest to find more journals. As Hurricane Irma bears down on the South Carolina coast, Ellie encounters Julian Hagood, a handsome architect who has the talent to restore her dilapidated mansion and the charm to mend her broken heart. But as Ellie reads her mother’s diaries, they dislodge a stone in the wall that safeguards her memories, causing her world to come crumbling down. Revelations about her childhood lead Ellie on a harrowing journey of discovery that will hold readers spellbound until the dramatic conclusion.
Review
I love love love Ashley’s books and this one is no exception. I think I heard this will be a series (or at least a 2nd book) which I am glad of because there is so much more to the story that hasn’t been told yet.
This book is about learning about the past and coming to terms with it, finding love and strengthening family. There is even a little bit of action and mystery – a very well rounded book.
This book also reminded me of Flowers in the Attic with the strict grandmother and her actions and comments to her daughter and granddaughter.
Ellie has inherited the estate from the crazy grandmother. She has mixed feelings, as anyone would, about the house and everything else. But it is also cathartic because she knows she is repressing something but isn’t sure what. You do find out but not giving it away, you’ll have to read the book to find out.
The book does leave you hanging a little bit because Ellie’s story is not complete and there are some other things that are revealed that need to be addressed more fully. Yes I know it is vague but has to be to not spoil part of the story.
We give it 5 paws up.
About the Author
Ashley Farley is a wife and mother of two college-aged children. She grew up in the salty marshes of South Carolina, but now lives in Richmond, Virginia, a city she loves for its history and traditions.
After her brother died in 1999 of an accidental overdose, she turned to writing as a way of releasing her pent-up emotions. She wrote SAVING BEN in honor of Neal, the boy she worshipped, the man she could not save. SAVING BEN is not a memoir, but a story about the special bond between siblings.
HER SISTER’S SHOES—June 2015—is a women’s novel that proves the healing power of family. Merry Mary—October 2015—a holiday novella, a young woman longing for a child stumbles upon a Christmas miracle. BREAKING THE STORY released on March 17, 2016. A romantic political suspense filled with passion, peril, and a scandal that will rock American politics.
