The house has soft, purple wisteria twining around the door. You step inside.
The hall is cool after the hot summer's day. The welcome is kind, and always warm.
Yet something makes you suspect life here can't be as perfect as it seems.
After all, the brightest smile can hide the darkest secret.
But wouldn't you pay any price to have a glorious place like this?
Welcome to Winterfold.
Martha Winter's family is finally coming home."
Rating: 5/5
You can buy A Place for Us (part 2) as an eBook now.
I'm not usually keen on book serialisations, I would prefer to sit down with the entire thing and enjoy reading it in one go. However, I have been looking forward to each part of the serialisation of Harriet Evans' new book A Place for Us, so it must be pretty good so far! This review is of the second part of the series, you can read my review of the first part here. However, I will give you a quick recap. In the first part, we met the Winter family, the many members of them, and their receiving of their annual party invitations from matriarch Martha Winter. We know that there is a secret that Martha is hiding, and it's going to be revealed at the party, and we get a hint right at the end of part 1 what that secret is. This is where part 2 picks up.
The extended Winter family have gathered for the party, looking forward to being reunited and sharing some laughs and secrets together as well... although some have more secrets to indulge than others. Things aren't well with all of the Winter's, son Bill's marriage is crumbling before his very eyes as his wife Karen reveals a shocking secrets, Cat's bringing along a brand new member of the family that no-one knew existed before, and Florence is hell-bent on getting some revenge against those who have wronged her. Combine this with the reveal of Martha's big secret and you're in for an explosive read...
As I mentioned previously, there are a lot of characters in this book to get your head around, but once you have worked out who is who, it's an easy read. It's just a matter of working out where they come in the family, and how they are related to one another! This is definitely a book you can't just dive into, you need to have read the first part for this to make sense. In this book, we find out much more about the secret that Martha has been hiding, and it was a shocking one. None of the Winter family had a clue about the secret either, and it was interesting to read their individual reactions once the secret had been exposed to all of them. Of course, this wasn't the only secret in the book and this made it all the more fun to read.
One thing I enjoyed about this part of the novel was that I felt we saw a different side to a few of the characters. Florence was a much stronger character in this book, keen on getting revenge for what has happened to her by her colleagues, and her brother Bill is also far stronger, standing up to his wife and finding out about her secret too. I also liked the introduction of a young character called Luke, a breath of fresh air in an older family, and he's fun to read. As always, Harriet Evans' writing is brilliant, very emotive and draws you in to the book, making you want to keep on reading and find out what is going to happen next. Although this part saw the big reveal, I have a feeling there are a lot more revelations to come for the Winter family, and I cannot wait to read part three! The end of this part literally leaves you begging for more. Bring on part three!
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