J. Courtney Sullivan

This book is a sprawling history of an interesting family, and the characters do feel very rounded out and full. I enjoyed the book until the ending, which I found to be very abrupt. After spending so much time showing us who these characters were and what made them tick, we didn’t get to see any of the hard conversations that needed to be had, nor the aftermath of them. I read the last line and then flipped to the next page...surely there had to at least be an epilogue? But no. I understand some of the reasons for this ending, but I’m not sure that they completely justified ending without any resolution for the main characters.… (more)

I struggled with this one. When I started, I thought it might be a story about a family and their drama. Then a mystery was introduced and I thought it might concentrate on that. But the story did neither.

It seemed to focus more on Jane and her story - but there are multiple POV with full storylines with their own characters and timeline. It was jarring, confusing and bogged the story down. I kept wondering what would come next because the story didn't focus all the time on the house or secrets. The chapters are long and their focus isn't always Jane and her current crisis.

I wish I'd liked this one more but I found it just wasn't for me.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.… (more)

Jane returns home after her mother's passing to clear out the family home. While she was there, she thinks of this house that she used to go to as a kid and she absolutely loved it. I believe it was purple at the time. Now, someone is living in the house, Genevieve and family, and they want Jane to research the history of the house (she was an archivist at Harvard's library). When they renovated it, she found gravestones in the back of the house, and paid someone to "move" them so they could have a pool put in there. Now Genevieve is staying at a hotel because weird things are happening in the house, lights flickering, ect. and her son had spoke to a ghost. And then it jumps back in time to "Eliza" the housekeeper. The husband died at sea and the wife, Hannah, was in the house with the two kids. And Hannah and Eliza started a love relationship. But then the husband comes back years later. I'm reading a synopsis of this book since it's been awhile and I'm confused even reading that. I remember there was lots of jumping in timelines and lots of characters. And Jane starts drinking again. I feel like the book tried to hit on every single topic in the world, gay, alcoholism, death. There was also something about a girl dying there with the name "D" that some psychic told her. She ends up finding out it's Daisy and she was one of the graves that was moved - I think. Maybe books with this many characters shouldn't be listened to. Maybe it's better reading, but just was a little all over the place for me. Sometimes jumping timelines/characters is OK. But a lot of times I find like I'm reading two different books and I prefer one of the other and wish the other timeline didn't exist.… (more)