Summer 1924 - On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.

Winter 1999 - Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories - long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind - begin to sneal back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story.


Some books that are set in the present and then go back into a characters past can occasionally get a bit confusing with the to-ing and fro-ing, making it a struggle to remember what happened when..... but not this one. It's one of those books that just seems to grab you from the first page and keeps you absorbed in the story and characters throughout, no matter how many times you put it down and pick it up again.

The only thing I managed to guess correctly fairly early on, before having it confirmed in the story, was the identity of Grace's father. The ultimate secret came right at the end and I definitely didn't guess it...... or expect it. The way the revelation was done was quite clever too, I thought.

It's a book that will stay in my memory for a long time so I have to give it a deserved top mark of 10.

Left on the charity bookshelf in the cafe area, to help raise funds for the local hospice. :0)