Don’t bother

It’s a shame, because this was right in my sweet spot: time crossing / historical fiction / picturesque Scottish location / etc. BUT:

Ruined by overly complex / criss-crossed relationships, overly drawn out back stories, too vividly misogynistic characters…and taking too long getting to the long-since foregone conclusion.

ugh - this almost went on my DNF shelf. Save yourself the time.

2.5

A young woman inherits a dilapidated -more than that, ruined- old house in a remote island. When she visits, with the idea of turning the house into a hotel/resort, she finds a skeleton in the remains of the house.
This was the family house of a famous painter, who lived there with his young wife 100 years before.

The story narrates both the events of 1910 as well as the situation in 2010.
As the story goes back and forth, we find out more about Theo Blake, the painter, and his family and of Hetty Deveraux, his sister's great grand-daughter, who inherits the house.

I have to say this book is very well written, but there's much description of the natural beauties and wildlife of the island... maybe too much? and for me, it was completely predictable and at 400 pages, way too long for me.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book because I'd heard the author discuss it on Radio National and thought it sounded interesting.

I believe that this novel has been favourably compared with "Rebecca" - but I see absolutely no grounds for this.

It's a well written, but predictable, melodramatic and slightly dull story. The narrative jumps around in time, which made getting into it in the early stages a bit tedious.

The descriptive writing is lovely in parts, but the characters failed to enchant. Moody, grumpy Theo was a bore and modern day Hattie was bland and passive in the extreme. The histrionic plot was too long winded (the book could be pruned by at least 100 pages) and it didn't take me very long at all to work out the 'big secret', making the rest of the plot easy to forecast.

Not my cup of tea at all, really.

I enjoyed the Scottish setting but the rest of the book was ok. The characters were pretty self-centered and adultery was glorified under guise of love.

Damn, Girl! 👏🏼👏🏼

I honestly didn’t expect to have enjoyed this book so much. I was literally carrying this book around, to the toilet, to a family gathering, even as I was accompanying me Mum to some sort like a Home Depot kind of thing, I was just going around with my nose stuck in the book. Sure, there were still the typical cliches that I’ve mentioned before; (1) the main character experiencing major loss in her life? ✔️; (2) after the loss, the main character decided to move away in order to start something new to help recover from the loss? ✔️; (3) there was something ominous link to the past between the main character and the new place? ✔️; (4) the link to the past had something to do with a family history? ✔️; (5) there’s another guy who seems to be annoying and quite mysterious in the beginning, only to end up as the main love interest of the main character? ✔️; (6) for some reasons, apparently the guy had a strong connection to the past also? ✔️.

Oh, wow! Will you look at that? A full six check lists of things showing the exact same thing that I found in The Silver Witch. But! Hold down your tongue! Although it shares a lot of basic premises, both stories differs in its genre; whilst The Silver Witch is more fantasy-like (what with some witch and/or shaman-like character in the story), The House Between Tides is more mystery-type as the characters set out to crack the mystery that lies in the house between tides.

So, then, what’s so good about this book? The back and forth story and the getting-to-know your characters in depthly are the two things that made this book stand out. It’s not always about Hetty, even though you think she was your main character, but it is everyone in the area of the house and the people before them who inhabits the island. You grew to sympathise with the characters, and that what makes me so hung up on the story.