Black Rabbit Hall

Written by Eve Chase

Narrated by Antonia Beamish

A secret history. A long-ago summer. A house with an untold story . . .

THE SPELLBINDING MYSTERY FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING RICHARD amp; JUDY PICK, THE GLASS HOUSE

The hours pass differently at Black Rabbit Hall.

For the four Alton children, it's the perfect summer escape where not much ever happens - until one stormy evening, something does. And their idyllic world is shattered.

Decades later, Lorna is drawn to a beautiful yet crumbling old house she hazily remembers from childhood - feels a bond she does not understand.

But a disturbing message left by one of the Alton children tells her that Black Rabbit Hall's history is as dark and tangled as its woods.

And much like her own past, it must be brought into the light . . .

A spellbinding story of two women, separated by decades, but inextricably linked by their connection to the beautiful and mysterious Black Rabbit Hall.

'Completely swept me away. Glorious, beautifully written . . . I absolutely loved it' LISA JEWELL

'Black Rabbit Hall's beautifully crafted mystery is a delight I want to experience again and again' STYLIST

'Atmospheric, with echoes of du Maurier, this haunting novel enchanted me' Woman amp; Home

'Beautifully, poetically written and reminiscent of everything from I Capture The Castle to Hansel And Gretel' Daily Mail

'There's something about tales of mysterious old buildings that have the ability to set hairs on end . . . Perfect' Red

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Jul 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781510006287

Reviews for Black Rabbit Hall

[hubblegal-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The reason I grabbed this book was that the author has been compared to Daphne DuMaurier and Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine. Both are favorite of mine so I had to read “Black Rabbit Hall”, which turned out to be a very good debut novel of forbidden love and family secrets.The novel fluctuates between the late 1960’s to more than three decades later. There’s all the ingredients of an old-fashioned Gothic romance – an old mansion with past tragedies, a love that shouldn’t be, even an evil stepmother. Teenaged Amber Alton is the main character from the 60’s. She has such a happy life at Black Rabbit Hall with her twin brother, younger siblings and parents until tragedy strikes. Lorna Dunaway is the present-day heroine. She and her fiancé Jon are looking for a wedding venue. Lorna is inexplicably drawn to Black Rabbit Hall although it’s so run down. She becomes entangled in the mansion’s family’s past and must find the answers to just what happened all those years ago.As I write that summary, I feel that it sounds so stereotype, like so many books before it. But this author excels in making her characters live and breathe on her pages. She truly pulls her reader into the story and has written a very readable, enchanting story. I had at one point thought I had figured out the family secret but it didn’t stop me from wanting to read more. But I had only figured out part of what was to come as there were many other surprises ahead. I cared about these characters and didn’t want to stop reading about them.Escapism at its best. Recommended.This book was given to me by First to Read in return for an honest review.

[kris_anderson-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase is a very slow book. The story tells of Lorna and Jon looking for a place to get married. They find Black Rabbit Hall (aka Pencraw Hall). Lorna visited the hall with her mother when she was a child (her mother recently passed away). Then the story goes back to the late 1960s with the Alton children. Amber, Toby, Barney, and Kitty spent their school vacations at the hall. Their mother, Nancy called it Black Rabbit Hall because of the rabbits that came out at sunset and you saw their black shadows across the lawn. Their mother died at Easter when she was out looking for her youngest son (off playing and then it started storming) on horseback (got thrown and broke her neck). The father, Hugo quickly rebounds and married Caroline Shawcross (she pursued him). Caroline brings her son, Lucian with her into the marriage. Lucian and Amber are attracted to each other, but it is forbidden (like that will stop them). Caroline is not fond of the children and there will be many changes to the family (Toby does not handle the changes). When Lorna visits Black Rabbit Hall, she encounters Dill (the housekeeper/cook) and Caroline. Caroline has opened the hall for events (needs the money). What happened to Hugo Alton and his children? Why is Lorna drawn to Black Rabbit Hall (she becomes obsessed)? Lorna gets a chance to stay at the hall and find some answers.I found Black Rabbit Hall to be an extremely boring book. It tried to be a mystery, but it did not succeed. I just found Black Rabbit Hall to be odd. We get the story from two different perspectives: Lorna’s and Amber’s (the majority of the book is from Amber’s point-of-view). The Amber section reads more like a young adult novel (she finds love at fifteen). The two stories go back and forth until we see how they are connected. I just found it dull and uninteresting (reading this book was like trekking through the desert). There is some very graphic violence (it is awful) in the book as well as sex and foul language. I did not enjoy Black Rabbit Hall (as you can tell). It sounded like such an intriguing and mysterious book (from the synopsis). I think the book (the idea) had potential, but the writer was not able to pull it off. I give Black Rabbit Hall 1 out of 5 stars. This book was just not for me. If you are looking for a book to help you sleep, then read Black Rabbit Hall.I received a complimentary copy of Black Rabbit Hall from NetGalley and First to Read in exchange for an honest review.

[Nicola Rogers · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the storyline in this book but disliked all but one of the characters which made it a tedious listen at times. The descriptions of feelings were a little bizarre at times. There was something chilling about the book which at times made me want to stop listening but I was pleased by the ending

[Caroline Thames · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderfully woven story filled with horror, love, joy and hope!

[cornelia16-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Im Sommer 1968 erschüttert der tödliche Reitunfall ihrer Mutter das zeitlose, unbeschwerte Leben der Familie Alton auf ihrem romantischen Landsitz Black Rabbit Hall in Cornwall. Nachdem die Zwillinge Amber und Toby (14) sowie ihre jüngeren Geschwister in großer Freiheit aufwuchsen, heiratet ihr Vater kurz darauf Caroline, die ihren älterenSohn Lucian mitbringt und ein strengeres Reglement einführt. Im 3 Jahrzehnte später spielenden 2. Handlungsstrang entdeckt Lorna (32) auf der Suche nach einem würdigen Ort für ihre Hochzeitsfeier das atmosphärisch beeindruckende Anwesen und spürt sofort eine seltsame Verbundenheit damit, deren Ursache sie klären muss. Im spannenden, wendungsreichen Finale werden die Fäden zusammengeführt und eine Kette von Familiengeheimnissen aufgeklärt. Unterhaltsamer Schmöker, dessen faszinierende Kulisse an Daphne du Maurier erinnert,der schnell einen starken Lesesog entfaltet und bis zum Schluss fesselt (s. Hörbuch, ID-A 11/16). Geschickt komponiert; sicher kein Regalhüter.

[techeditor_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

BLACK RABBIT HALL is two stories that, for the first half of the book, only seem to be related by photographs showing one story's main character, Lorna, as a child standing in front of Black Rabbit Hall, where everything takes place in the other story. So that's the mystery for the first half of the book: why was Lorna at Black Rabbit Hall when she was a child? Both stories bored me. They were wordy; that is, descriptions went on and on. "OK," I thought, "I get it. Get on with it, please!"In one story, Amber lives at Black Rabbit Hall in the 1960s with her brothers and sister and their beautiful, perfect mother, soon out of the picture to be replaced by an evil stepmother. Oh, and with her comes a handsome stepbrother.In the other story, present-day Lorna and her fiance explore wedding venues, Black Rabbit Hall being Lorna's choice because of the aforementioned photographs. Black Rabbit Hall is now owned/managed by the old evil stepmother, and Lorna spends the night there, alone with the evil stepmother and a maid.When the two stories finally do come together, BLACK RABBIT HALL is less boring. It is not an original story, though; it is ages old: an evil stepmother, the suffering children, a baby given up for adoption, reunification, even a kind of comeuppance for the evil stepmother. Haven't we all seen this story over and over? Heck, I even remember watching Shirley Temple in this story on Sunday mornings. And, of course, the end is wonderful for all left alive.I'll say this for BLACK RABBIT HALL: the second half of the book has more mysteries. Even so, this book made me feel like I read and saw it before. It reminded me too much of stories that appealed to me when I was a child.

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I only chose this book because the Kindle version was on offer so I can't really complain, but I feel like I have read this same story many, many times now - usually on the recommendation of Richard and Judy too! Two perspectives, one told in first person and set in the past - 1969, in this instance - and the other a framing narrative in the 'present day'. Rambling country house, bonus points for a coastal location to cash in on Du Maurier, inhabited by a dysfunctional middle class family with echoes of Rosamund Pilcher. Modern counterpart reads like chick lit. Dark family secrets binding both generations together. Many implausible coincidences ensue. Happy ending. Sound familiar?In the late 60s, the Alton family divide the year between London and their Cornish pile, Pencraw or Black Rabbit Hall. When the stunningly beautiful and bohemian Mrs Alton - who is American, natch, and has 'hair a blaze of red and her eyes green as lettuce' (what is the fascination with styling women after Jolene?) - tragically dies after falling from her horse, the family glue starts to come unstuck. And this isn't a spoiler because her death comes in the first few chapters and she is merely a device anyway. Not only do the children - twins Toby and Amber, and little ones Barney and Kitty - begin to change, but the story I was expecting started to fall apart too. Less 'something nasty in the woods' and more 'wicked stepmother' territory. Hugo Alton's ex girlfriend, a glacial blonde upstart jilted in favour of the glamorous American, reappears on the scene at the funeral and soon moves into the Hall with her dark and brooding son in tow. Amber is drawn towards Lucian, sending her brother even further over the edge, and the inevitable happens. Thirty years later, teacher Lorna is hunting for a wedding venue with her fiancé Jon and feels drawn towards the Hall. At this point, I started asking myself what 2+2 might add up to, and I wasn't wrong, sadly.Don't get me wrong, for a light, fast read, this book ticks all the boxes. I wanted to know - confirm - why Lorna and her mother used to visit the Hall, but also discover what happened to little Barney, which is foreshadowed in the first chapter, and so I kept reading. But at the same time, I found the clichés annoying, especially the perfect mother called 'Momma' by her children, and the the hard-hearted bitch of a stepmother. There are some lyrical moments, like the children's description of grief - 'This is how we miss her now, less with a sadness that we swim about in and more with sharp spikes of feelings that pop up unexpectedly, like foxgloves in the woods' - and occasional flashes of humour ('Am I allowed to point out now that Black Rabbit Hall is completely loony? Sort of like being trapped in a Kate Bush song') but mostly this was just a game of contemporary fiction bingo. And the final chapters, when everything is neatly tied up with a bow, were merely the swirl of sickly fondant icing on a flat cupcake.

[kbranfield-837433 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4.5 stars.

From the deliciously mysterious prologue until the last page is turned, Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase is a riveting novel that is impossible to put down. The dark and sorrowful events from 1969 continue to reverberate three decades later when bride-to-be Lorna Dunaway's search for a wedding venue takes her to a dilapidated country estate in Cornwall.

In 1968, the Alton family is deliriously happy when they depart from London to their country estate which they affectionately refer to as Black Rabbit Hall. Hugo and Alton are deeply in love and this happiness is reflected in their four children: teenage twins Amber and Toby and the much younger Barney and Kitty. Vacations at Black Rabbit Hall are idyllic and rather magical as the kids run wild exploring the estate and lazing around the beach. But their happy days come to an abrupt end when their mother dies in a tragic accident and their father Hugo's ex-girlfriend Caroline Shawcross and her teenage son Lucian enter their lives a short time later.

Lorna is immediately entranced with the ramshackle estate and over her fiancé Jon's strenuous objections, she accepts the homeowner's invitation to spend the weekend in the mansion. She feels a strong kinship to the property and after discovering a puzzling carving on a tree that dates back to 1969, her curiosity is piqued. Hoping to uncover the truth about the long ago tragedy, Lorna gently quizzes the owner and her employee, but she is frustrated by their reluctance to talk about the past. Instead, she finds tantalizing clues in photo albums but she soon hits a dead end. After discovering information that is inexplicably linked to her own past, Lorna is ready to return to London when the elderly homeowner finally agrees to reveal the secrets from that unsettled time in 1969.

The heartbreaking events from 1968-1969 are told in a series of flashbacks from teenager Amber's point of view. Happy and well-adjusted before her mother's death, Amber is forced to act as a surrogate parent for Kitty and Barney. Kitty manages to emerge from the tragedy relatively unscathed but young Barney remains traumatized by the incident. Twin brother Toby is sent back to boarding school only to be expelled when his anger spills over into violence. The increasingly tense situation takes a dark turn when Hugo insists the family return to Black Rabbit Hall for Christmas later that year where he introduces the children to Caroline and Lucian. Amber is somewhat entranced by Lucian but Toby deeply resents his and his mother's intrusion on their holiday. This animosity intensifies after Hugo and Caroline marry soon after the one year anniversary of their mother's death and Amber is torn between her loyalty to Toby and her growing (and forbidden) attraction to Lucian.

With startling plot twists and jaw dropping revelations, Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase is a captivating novel that is quite suspenseful. While not a traditional mystery, this intriguing story is quite atmospheric and vaguely reminiscent of old-fashioned Gothic stories. A fast-paced and compelling read that I absolutely loved and highly recommend!

[patriciau-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

You know how some books have to be read at a certain time in your life? How sometimes your own life events just keep you from enjoying what everyone else is saying is a great book? That's Black Rabbit Hall for me.
I confess. I abandoned this one after the first 50 pages. I just couldn't *like* any of the characters, so I ended up reading the last two chapters and then putting it down.
Maybe another time....

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed! It has that little bit of surrealism to make it extra memorable.

[mandarella-337035 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was recommended to me earlier this summer but it took me a couple months to get around to picking it up and finishing it. I was intrigued because the back of the dust jacket references Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca is a favorite novel of mine). At times it read a little reminiscent of Flowers in The Attic by V.C. Andrews - four siblings and a villian on an deserted estate. Kind of gothic with lots of family secrets. While the story unravels nicely between the past and the present, there was very littler character development or depth.

[flourgirl49 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book could have been so much better, but it just didn't live up to my expectations, unfortunately.

[gpangel_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase is a 2015 publication. Many people will place a book in the Gothic category, using the term too loosely, in my opinion, but It’s very, very rare to find a story that delivers an authentic Gothic mystery. However, ‘Black Rabbit Hall’ delivers exactly that, and with relish on top!! I’m thrilled and amazed by this book, which tells the story of four children living an ideal life in 1968, until tragedy strikes. From there, their lives quickly dissolve into madness, turmoil, and melancholy, with more tragedy to follow. Fast forward to present day, where we meet Lorna and Jon, a couple madly in love, looking for a wedding venue. Oddly enough, an old Cornwall house on the list of possibilities, peaks Lorna’s interest, not only because she loves old houses, but because she has some fragmented memories of having visited there with her mother, who recently passed away. Once she sees the house, her heart is set on it despite Jon’s skepticism. Before long, Lorna becomes involved with the matriarch of the house and the housekeeper, vowing to help bring in more clients by writing up an article regarding the history of the house, and its family legacy. Little did she know her vague memories of the house connect her in a direct way to its past and could possibly shape her future. The lovely and isolated setting of Cornwall is a fitting backdrop to tell the history of the Alton children. The mystery of what became of the family is told in alternate chapters, while Mrs. Alton shares her memories with Lorna in the present. As the story unfolds, Lorna slowly begins to piece together her own memories of Black Rabbit Hall, revealing a shocking revelation that left me stunned. This absorbing tale and family saga is full of dark secrets, betrayals, and manipulations, but as the two storylines begin to merge, the ghosts of the past will finally rest in peace, paving the way for healing and new beginning for all. This is such a beautifully written novel, rich in details and vivid characterizations, cloaked with a haunting atmosphere that lingers long after the final page.The ending is everything I hoped it would be and more. This is definitely my kind of book!! 5 stars

[icewineanne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another one of those stories that shifts between 2 points of view; Amber, a child in the late 60's, and Lorna, a young woman about to be married, told more than 3 decades after Amber's story.

What connects the 2 stories is an old crumbling country estate house in Cornwall, called Pencraw Hall, known locally as Black Rabbit Hall, because of the rabbits that come out of their burrows at dusk. It's the perfect setting for a mysterious gothic tale of family secrets set on the wild & stormy Cornish coast.

The house was Amber's family's summer holiday home and is now being advertised as a wedding venue to raise funds to pay for its upkeep. Only an old woman and her housekeeper live there now and the manor is crumbling around them.
Lorna remembers visiting there with her mother, as a child, and thinks that this would be a perfect setting for her wedding. Her fiancé isn't convinced but when she arrives, she feels a strange connection, and when she finds out a child died there, she's immediately obsessed with finding out what happened to the the child & the former occupants. Of course (typically in these sorts of books) he returns to London while she remains at the isolated house exploring its secrets.

If you are a fan of mysterious gothic settings, family secrets, tragedy & romance, then this book is for you. Also recommended for fans of Kimberley Freeman & Kate Morton. Beautifully written for the most-part, so it was surprising when i found a few awkward sentences that an eagle-eyed editor should have spotted (eg. "So he had a fair innings").

My only quibble with the story is that Eve Chase tied it all up too neatly at the end. Sometimes I prefer to be left a little disturbed :-D

[beammey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For me this book ended up just being alright. It wasn't a bad story and I did enjoy it, but I just found a lot of it to be really predictable. I wanted to keep reading though to see if my suspicions about things were correct xD. It is a good read, and it is entertaining, but it isn't a 'fun' story by any means. I did like the two time lines though and I did like the characters, so 4 out of 5 stars for me and I would recommend this book.

[jen6e6moore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There were more gothic tropes thrown at this story than I think the resolution ultimately deserved, but I enjoyed it nonetheless - even if there weren't any ghosts. Gothic stories need ghosts, and not just metaphorical ones.

[twink_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely adored this book!! Black Rabbit Hall is Eve Chase's debut novel. I can't imagine how she will follow it up - but I will be waiting for her next book.1969: Amber and her siblings live with their parents at Pencraw Hall, affectionately called Black Rabbit Hall by the children. Life is idyllic, until a single stormy night irrevocably changes the direction of their lives forever.30 years later: Lorna and her fiancé John are driving the back roads of Cornwall (England) hunting for a Pencraw Hall, that advertised itself as a wedding venue. When they finally come across it, Lorna feels a odd sense of.....something....recognition?I love dual narratives, past and present being slowly revealed, until the stories inevitably collide, revealing the final connections and resolution.Amber and Lorna are both wonderful protagonists, each with a distinct voice. I found myself more caught up in the past. Perhaps because it is these events that shape the future? I grew so invested in the lives of the Alton children and found myself cursing the antagonist of the book out loud. I'm trying to not give away too much, but oh my goodness - she is truly, truly nasty.All the absolutely delicious elements of a Gothic tale are in place - a creaky, crumbling old mansion filled with the detritus of its glory days, a cantankerous old woman in situ who has been hanging on to her secrets for many, many years and a housekeeper who has lived her whole life in that mansion as well. Dark woods and overgrown gardens surround the house, adding to the wonderful atmosphere Chase has created.Chase drops clues along the way - single sentences that say so much about what has happened. I found myself talking out loud again - quite saddened by some of those past events. And just as some of those past events are revealed, the narrative changes to the present day. For me, this always guarantees being tired in the morning, as I just have to read 'one more chapter'.....and then another and another.Black Rabbit Hall is hands down one of my fave reads for 2016.

[angela.k.winters · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase is the story of the Alton family. It is set in the 50's and 60's in Cornwall, England. It is the story of a life had and a life lost. This book for me is reminiscent of V.C. Andrews Flowers In The Attic. I absolutely loved this book!! I couldn't put it down. I found myself at work thinking what would happen next.Kudos to Eve Chase and this wonderful book!!!!

[bookappeal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An enormous house in Cornwall is filled with love and laughter during lazy seasons of the 1960s when Hugo Alton and his nontraditional American wife vacation with their brood: teenaged twins Amber and Toby, lively 5-year-old Barney, and the youngest, sweet and chubby Kitty. Over thirty years later, Lorna and Jon discover the nearly hidden estate on their search for a wedding venue. Lorna is enchanted, her love of old clothes and houses something she shared with her recently deceased mother. Jon is more wary - and he hasn't even met the owner yet. Compelled by a force stronger than mere curiosity, Lorna is determined to learn the house's secrets - story that holds unspeakable tragedy for the Alton family.Through parallel narratives, debut novelist Eve Chase creates a haunting tale in a gothic setting, building suspense slowly and inventing a distinctive cast of characters.Readalike: Similar in tone and atmosphere to The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield but slightly more hopeful.

[dianekeenoy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An enjoyable gothic tale told from the viewpoint of Amber Alton in the 1960s and from present day by Lorna Dunaway. Very happy family and happy times at Rabbit Hall until 1968 when a terrible accident causes it all to unravel. More than 30 years later, Lorna wants to be married at Pencraw Hall (our Black Rabbit Hall) and goes there with her fiancé to check it out. And then, as we would expect, the old house holds her fast until she finds out what happened all those years ago and what does it have to do with her? I'm glad that I read it but not a book that I need to own.

[melaniehope · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a story that takes place in the late 1960s and then in 2009. It begins as Lorna is looking for a venue where she can get married. As soon as she sees the rambling, decrepit Black Rabbit Hall (Pencraw) she is fixated on learning more about the estate and its mysteries.Then we switch back to 1969. Amber and her family of 5 are enjoying the holidays at Black Rabbit Hall when tragedy strikes. With the death of her mom, the family barely copes. However, one year later, and the father remarries. His new wife is the "evil" stepmother who seems to do everything in her power to erase the memory of the first wife. Eventually, we learn about the doom of Black Rabbit Hall.The book has a good resolution and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of a sinister novel set in an old estate with a history behind it. I received a complimentary copy via Netgalley.com

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

‘Black Rabbit Hall’ starts off fairly slow; Lorna and her fiancé are looking for a wedding venue in 1999 or so, and Pencraw (the Black Rabbit Hall of the title) in Cornwall is first on her list, despite its decrepit condition and odd owner and manager. In 1968, young teen Amber Alton and her very happy and close family (Toby, her twin; young Barney; and baby Kitty) are leaving London for the summer at Pencraw, their ancestral estate. But it’s not long before things change; tragedy strikes the Alton family. The event shatters the close family; some do not have the coping skills to survive it. And the way the father choses to try and survive creates further problems that will echo through the years, intersecting with Lorna’s life. The prose is lush and beautiful. Multi-sensory descriptions abound, allowing the reader to fully inhabit the story. While I had suspicions of how the story would wind up, it ended up surprising me. I stayed up late reading this book, and grabbed it again in the morning. Despite being set in the Cornish countryside and having no supernatural elements, it reads like a Southern gothic- at one point I thought it was going to go all ‘Flowers in the Attic’-ack. It’s family drama at its craziest, but with touches of sweetness. It does have faults. While Chase has description and setting down pat, some of her character building is lacking. The wicked step-mother is pretty much nothing but wicked; she has not one redeeming feature or even any characteristic other than ‘wicked’. Father Alton is pretty one dimensional as well. Amber (the narrator of most of the story) is the most complex character because we spend so much time in her head; she’s got a good range of emotions and motives and I felt a lot of sympathy for her. Lorna, for some reason, is kind of blah even though she is the other main character. In some ways, she’s simply a device for the family secrets to be unveiled. Despite this character problem, the book is highly readable and compelling.

[jprince77 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At the first sentence, I was hooked. A character who "felt safe on the cliff ledge" had to have a good story to tell. The intriguing introduction of a second protagonist foreshadowed the intersection of two lives but when, how? Chase's writing is sumptuous, but never superfluous. She evoked my memories of reading George Elliott in college, and of endlessly falling in love with books over too short summers in the country. The voices felt so authentic, the story so true. Like traveling through Black Rabbit Hall, the narrative "fosters a dreamy kind of lingering, and openness to getting lost. The pacing is perfection, and as the story drew to its climax, I found myself wanting to prolong the inevitable. I kept putting the book down so I could draw out finishing it. By Chapter 32, I was crying. (Okay, I cried during the Martian ,too). A lovely read, I will put it on my bookshelf to pick up again in a few years, as I do with many classics.What an incredible debut! Eve Chase has written a thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing and believable story. Reading Chase's prose is like taking a tour of Downtown Abbey, you find yourself stopping to admire an especially lovely detail at you go along.

[dubaireader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An eloquent author.This is an author I will definitely read again, not for her story-line, but for her beautiful use of words and her wonderful character descriptions, this is where the novel's strengths lie.She uses the much favoured method of moving between two time frames to tell the story of Amber, her twin Toby, and their younger siblings, Kitty and Barney. I fell in love with all the children, their vivacious American mother, Nancy, and the devoted servant, Peggy.Unfortunately disaster strikes and along comes the wicked step-mother, after which the narrative loses some of its power. I'm hopeless at guessing the end of books, but my book group reckoned they saw it all coming. In the current day scenario, Lorna comes across Black Rabbit Hall as a possible wedding venue, and despite its state of disrepair, she immediately decides that this is where she'd like her wedding, causing rifts between her and her fiance.Why is she so drawn to the house?Some of the descriptions made me smile: "She was at the 'end of my tether' two hours ago, so I don't know where she is now" (loc 1493)Others were eloquent: "But the imprint of her bare feet on the grass remains, a little bit of her left to await her return" (loc 3280)And some just struck me; "keeping half an eye on Barney, just like mother used to do in the days when I was free to be a kid" (loc 1475).With a slightly less text book scenario, Eve Chase could become an author to watch.