The Daughters of Foxcote Manor (Wheeler Publishing Large Print Hardcover)

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Top Five Tuesday: 5 books that I’m thankful for in 2023 #Top5Tuesday #TuesdayBookBlog @MeeghanReads#TopFiveTuesday November 21, 2023

She felt positive about the future, but her plans had to be put on hold when a terrible accident left her usually bright and active mother in a comma. Her daughter’s reaction to that was not what she expected, Sylvie suspected that something was very wrong, because that had always been very close and they always talked about anything and everything.Well, let's get this bloody awful thing over with, shall we?" Jeannie whispers grimly. Rita nods and grapples with the gearshift. Forcing a smile for the children, Jeannie says in a loud, bright voice, "Well, hello, Foxcote! This is exciting. Come on, Big Rita. Drive in."

And she couldn’t bear the thought of walking away from Jeannie, Hera, and Teddy when they needed her most. It’d be like giving up on them. Or saying,” I can’t help you anymore,” even though she’s sure she can—she knows about grief, the way it scars you, not on the skin but on the soft suede of the soul inside. (And how it is to grow up different, like Hera, the one who doesn’t fit.) So yes, surely better she “report” on Jeannie this summer, fudging whenever necessary, than some strict new hire, she reasoned. Even this morning it felt like the right decision. But now that they’re here, enclosed by these somber, looming trees, in a spot so remote it feels like they’re the last survivors on the planet, she’s no longer sure. Her mouth is dry and metallic. It tastes of betrayal. As with Chase's previous books this is a dual time frame novel, the narrative alternating from the 1970s, where we have two different narrators, Rita, the Harrington's nanny, and Hera, one of her young charges, and the current time, where the story is told from Sylvie's point of view. It is about a fifth of the way in that it becomes clear how Sylvie is connected with the characters and story from the past. Again, as with Chase's previous works, the story is very much mystery based, but also at heart a story about families, and the Harringtons are certainly a dysfunctional one at that.

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Emma @damppebbles is honoring #bookbloggers with her annual #R3COMM3ND3D2023 – and today is myday! November 18, 2023 Rita, Jeannie, Teddy and Hera would make the five-hour driving trip from London to the family’s country estate, a manor house located in a remote, heavily wooded location. Rita envisioned these two developments with a foreboding feeling. She hated driving, and she despises the woods. But even so, considering how much she came to care for the family, and the fact that she loves her job, causes her to grit through these temporary annoyances. Loyal, kind, and adored by my four children. Brilliant with the baby. Not so good on laundry or cooking. Very nervous driver. Would hire her again in a heartbeat.” Rita’s mind had raced. First, if she left, where would she go? How would she live? Nan had died a few months earlier—not a bad case of indigestion, after all—and the council had reclaimed her bungalow. She had been determined to give Nan a proper send-off and a gravestone. The cost had wiped out her savings.

Eve Chase is an extraordinary writer and The Daughters of Foxcote Manor is absolutely her best yet. No one creates families as complex, loveable and utterly believable as Chase and she is the master of the dual time frame narrative.” I have to remain in London, what with the business, so you must make notes on my wife's state of mind." Walter smoothed his rapidly retreating hair. "Keep me informed of her moods. Appetite. Quality of mothering. I'll expect your absolute discretion, of course. My wife mustn't find out." Big Rita goes to work for the Harrington family one summer in 1970. All I can say is that this is a toxic atmosphere. A family that doesn't bond but has many secrets and the children being psychologically damaged by unhappy adults.The Daughters of Foxcote Manor is not really about a murder, or a creepy house, but about families - the ones we're born into, the ones we make and especially the ones we flee.”— The New York Times Extraordinary…Absolutely her best yet.”—Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs Fourteen months ago, Rita had never been to London. But she’d dreamed of it longingly, the Rita she might be there, far away from Torquay, everything that had happened. And the metropolitan family—just like the Darlings in Peter Pan—who’d embrace her as their own. They’d live in a tall warm house that didn’t have a coin-gobbling electricity meter, like Nan’s bungalow did. She’d get a bedroom of her own, with a desk and a shelf, perhaps a view of the churning, thrilling city. And the mother she worked for would be . . . well, perfect. Someone delicate and kind and soft. Cultured. With tiny earlobes and fluttery birdlike hands. Like her own mother, whom Rita hazily remembered. Everything she’d lost in the accident. And that a bit of her kept searching for.