Friday 31 October 2014

The Emerald Comb by Kathleen McGurl


One afternoon, Katie takes a drive to visit Kingsley House, the family home of her ancestors, the St Clairs. She falls in love the minute she sees it. It may be old and in desperate need of modernisation, but it is her link to the past and, having researched her family tree extensively, she feels a sense of belonging to the crumbling old estate.

When it suddenly comes up for sale, she cannot resist persuading her family to sell up and buy it, never telling them the truth of their connection with it. But soon the past collides with the present, as the house begins to reveal the secrets it has hidden for generations. Does Katie really want to discover what she has come from?


Thank you to Girls Love To Read for asking me to take part in the blog tour for this book. I didn't really know too much about it before I started reading it but I had seen some of the hype around it so I was very much looking forward to reading it. 

This is a time slip novel, which is not something I have read much of before, but I loved it! The way we get to see two stories both from completely different time's but overlapping was brilliant. This book was essentially two different books, a historical fiction and a contemporary novel, it was great to be able to see these two genres mixed as we don't often see this, it is good to compare the characters and their lives then and now and see how differently they lived. I loved that we got to read two different stories, about two different families (although technically the same family), both with their secrets. 

I thought at first that switching between different characters and time zones might confuse or complicate the book for the reader, however, this is not the case at all. Kathleen tells us which time zone we are in at the beginning of the chapter and stays in that time until the next, this makes it so easy to read and the novel just flows.

The parts that were written in the past I think I enjoyed more than the present and I found myself intrigued as to what was going to happen. What I loved about this is that we learn about everything through letters that are being written from Bartholomew St Clair to his son Barty, this is a much more personal way of telling us his story and we feel so much more connected to it as we become Barty reading his father's letters. When Katie Smith (formerly St Clair), a descendant of Barty's brother, buys their house the past becomes the present and Katie ends up caught in the middle of a murder mystery case that is over 100 years old.

I don't want to say too much more about this book because I went into it pretty blind and I am so glad I did because not knowing what to expect made it so much better. Plus there are so many stories going on within this book I couldn't possibly tell you them all, some of them you don't expect which is so exciting!

Kathleen has written a brilliant novel, the research she has put into it to allow us to feel as though we are back in the early 1900's is amazing, I could picture everything in front of me as if I was actually there. It is one of those books that you get hooked on straight away and just can't put down. I would recommend this book to anybody as I don't think there will be many people that won't enjoy it. If you want a book that is exciting, fast-paced and impossible to put down, with plenty of twists and turns, then you need to buy this book! I can't wait to read more of Kathleen's novels.




1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much, Emma! I am glad you loved the book.
    Kath

    ReplyDelete