Monday, September 29, 2014

Review - The Sea House


The Sea House
A Novel
by Elisabeth Gifford
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pub. Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1250043344
Pages: 320
Blog Tour: http://litfusegroup.com/author/egifford
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/ZSbs53

Review:
 
Released earlier this year is the mystery-romance The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford. Typically, the only romance books I read are the historical kind, but I was looking for something different to read and that is exactly what I got with this novel.

The Sea House centers a couple, Michael and Ruth, who moves into an old seaside house on the Scottish Island of Harris. At first glance the house is a dream come true, but this house has many secrets buried within it, including the remains of a baby, whose legs were fused together, as if it were a mermaid baby. As I guess you can say that the couple's plans on turning the house into a bread & breakfast are definitely put on a hold.

Being pregnant, Ruth becomes interested in the identity of the baby and the history of the house, which leads her to learn about an amateur evolutionary scientist, Reverend Alexander Ferguson, who once lived in he house during the 1800s. Alexander was investigating the legend of the selkies, a mermaid/seal people that have been sighted in the area for the centuries.

I'm not going to go into any more spoilers, as I don't want to give away everything to other readers. The book is told from two different point-of-views - Ruth in 1992 and Reverend Alexander Ferguson in 1860! I have ancestors from Scotland, so any book that is set there instantly catches my attention. The author does a great job giving vivid descriptions of the Scotland Isles, a bit of history of the land, as well as giving a mythology to the selkies. Overall, The Sea House is an intriguing mystery novel that I highly recommend to others.




*Disclaimer - I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.



About the Author:

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. She is the author of The House of Hope: A Story of God's Love and Provision for the Abandoned Orphans of China and has written articles for The Times and the Independent and has a Diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford OUDCE and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She is married with three children. They live in Kingston on Thames but spend as much time as possible in the Hebrides.

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