Season of Storms - Susanna Kearsley
"In the early 1900s, in an elegant, isolated villa called Il Piacere, the playwright Galeazza D'Ascanio lived for Celia Sands. She was his muse and his mistress, his most enduring obsession. She was the inspiration for his most stunning, original play. But the night before she was to take the stage in the leading role, she disappeared.
Now, in a theatre on the grounds of Il Piacere, Alessandro D'Ascanio is preparing to stage the first performance of his grandfather's masterpiece. A promising young actress - who shares Celia Sands' name - but not her blood - has agreed to star. She is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play - and to her compelling, compassionate employer. And even though she knows she should let the past go, in the dark - in her dreams - it comes back..."
I've read Susanna Kearsley before, but I'd forgotten how good she is. Just looking at her books, one is easily tempted to lump her in with Nora Roberts and the like, but she's really much better than that. This book, like the others I've read, was very well written, with engaging characters and an original story. She's very good at dropping little twists in here and there, so that by the time you get to the end, the outcome isn't entirely unexpected, but it doesn't turn out quite the way you might have guessed in the beginning. And she's quite skilled at leaving clues about these things, so that you can look back after a reveal and see what led up to it (or, if you read more mysteries and were more attuned to that sort of thing, perhaps you'd have already figured it out by the time you got there), but subtle enough clues that they don't feel like foreshadowing anvils constantly being dropped on your head. And it's a nicely balanced book - not too heavy, but not too frivolous either. Definitely an enjoyable read, and I think I'll add her other books that I haven't read to my list.
Next up: Fall On Your Knees, by Ann Marie MacDonald, assuming it ever makes it to the library for me.
Now, in a theatre on the grounds of Il Piacere, Alessandro D'Ascanio is preparing to stage the first performance of his grandfather's masterpiece. A promising young actress - who shares Celia Sands' name - but not her blood - has agreed to star. She is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play - and to her compelling, compassionate employer. And even though she knows she should let the past go, in the dark - in her dreams - it comes back..."
I've read Susanna Kearsley before, but I'd forgotten how good she is. Just looking at her books, one is easily tempted to lump her in with Nora Roberts and the like, but she's really much better than that. This book, like the others I've read, was very well written, with engaging characters and an original story. She's very good at dropping little twists in here and there, so that by the time you get to the end, the outcome isn't entirely unexpected, but it doesn't turn out quite the way you might have guessed in the beginning. And she's quite skilled at leaving clues about these things, so that you can look back after a reveal and see what led up to it (or, if you read more mysteries and were more attuned to that sort of thing, perhaps you'd have already figured it out by the time you got there), but subtle enough clues that they don't feel like foreshadowing anvils constantly being dropped on your head. And it's a nicely balanced book - not too heavy, but not too frivolous either. Definitely an enjoyable read, and I think I'll add her other books that I haven't read to my list.
Next up: Fall On Your Knees, by Ann Marie MacDonald, assuming it ever makes it to the library for me.