My Uncle John died at the end of last year. It was a strange time for us. My nan lives with my parents now and she was very upset, my dad wasn't close with his brother and was feeling guilty about that, me and my sisters were very emotionless about the whole thing.

John ignored us our whole life, despite the fact that he lived with my nan for a very long time, and we were always at her house. When we were little we used to try and think of way to get his attention but it never worked.

My nan brought him a moblie home before she moved and had never been invited to it. It was only after he died that we realised why, it was a shit heap. Think of one of those horder shows and you get the idea. Anyways we've been clearing out his stuff, there were alot of books. This is one of them. It's strange, that I actually feel I know him better now and it's sad because after seeing his things, we actually would have had a lot in common. We've found all sorts of things left inside his books, old love letters & an a very old winning scratch card. I guess the more I look the more I will find.

I never knew why he wasn't intrested in being an uncle to us, and I guess I never will. Reading his books will be the closest I'll ever get to him.

During the first half of this book, I was convinced this was going to a 5 star read. Totally sucked in by the mystery of The Woman In White, I had several theories about why Sir Percival would have had her committed, all would have been far more exciting than the actual reason.

The book started to flounder during the second half, when the decision was made to fake the death of one of the main characters and I pretty much lost interest.

We then have lots of twists and turns, and instead of being exciting, they just ended up being confusing. I still don't really understand why the Count needed to pretend Laura was dead. And Sir Percival locked Anne up as he thought she knew his rather bland secret (She didn't).

I was also hoping throughout the whole book, that Walter would fall for Marian, who actually has a personality but alas, he picks the delicate flower instead.

This started strong but lost it's way during the second half. I would still recommend reading it, as it better than other classics out there. And far better than some of Dickens's novels!

Left in the Book Exchange Box.