Saturday, October 02, 2010

Stargazers

I have just finished a book by Rachel Hore, called A Place of Secrets. I have read all of her books and enjoyed them all. They follow a similar theme, set in a beautiful location, complicated relationships, building on a historical story, fitting the pieces of a puzzle together. This one takes the same pattern but with a different subject area, so with each book, because they are so well-researched, you always feel as though you are learning something. The subject for this book was astronomy and it was fascinating. It was a really brilliant story about an auctioneer being asked to visit a country home in Norfolk to value a collection of books about astronomy. She finds a journal describing the findings of a previous owner of the house and uncovers a mystery, enhanced by the strange dreams that her niece was having. My only criticism is that it was a very complex story, and was perhaps unravelled a little too quickly. I think the author could have spent some more time just unpacking some of the relationships and the mystery itself. I could quite happily have continued reading this story. It was beautifully and cleverly told and the characters were all so real. I enjoyed the ending very much as it was well-put-together.