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** spoiler alert ** Wandering the lonely road, the mind seeks comfort or, perhaps, seeks to hide from the conscious state. The game is played to thunder a clear sky; whereas the birthed planes offer opportunities for life & wonder, the moments nearing the ultimate end observe the scavengers come to their knees to plead reprieve. This bristling moment is shared with the reader in this story from the point of view of a person whose life has rumbled onward for a few decades but whose troubles cannot slay the beast that exists in the periphery of their loved one’s mind.

In essence, this is a story about a woman who seeks to bring clarity to a secret her mother held. Edith (“Edie��) is a grown woman, she has a career & has experienced loss, frustration, & obstacles in her path to find her place in the world. The reader meets her in a moment of such struggle; the life she seemed confident to lead has changed course & Edie must now decide where she should be & how to arrive at her destination.

While the personal frugalities of Edie’s life rumble in the background, the reader meets Edie’s mother, Meridith; a woman in the mid-years of her life, a housewife, a cold-English mother; this character is in truth, the focal point of the story though, readers will note that the narrative hardly incorporates her at all.

In truth, Meridith is one of the more interesting characters in this story. As a child in England during WWII, Meridith & her siblings were sent into the English countryside in an effort to keep them safe from the bombs that non-aligned, enemy forces were tossing into the homes of innocent civilians. During her time in the countryside, Meridith became friends with the host family who cared for her for the few months she was with them.

The Blythe sisters—Persephone, (“Percy��), Seraphina (‘Saffy��), & Juniper—lived alongside their ailing father, Raymond, in Milderhurt Castle in 1941, when Meridith arrived. The complexities of the family dynamic enhance the reading experience & though readers will possibly prefer one sister over another, their partnership leads the narrative down a path that is necessary to take.

By this I mean, that although the sisters are interesting people, I found them rather annoying. Their presence in this story is vital. Their father wrote the story that inspired Edie to reveal her mother’s personal history & it was the Blythe sisters who held the key to everything. Yet, this did not change that I found their sections difficult to digest.

I suppose that out of all places to start, it would be positive to begin where it counts—the beginning. This is my second time reading this book. One may note that this review has not started on a loving foot & one would be correct. I vividly remember my first experience with this book. I had been sitting at the edge of my bed, deep into the night, certain that I could finish the beast of a book before dawn. Morton weaves a good story, it is part of the reason why I am so motivated to meet her stories again, regardless of how I feel about them. It is a very rare & admirable thing to meet a person who has the gift of stories.

On our first encounter, I felt that this story held everything I would have hoped to find & perhaps, even a bit more. The mystery of a lost love; the madness of a dying mind; a family secret; a world war in the background—the story was profoundly crafted & oozed intrigue. On that night, all those years ago, I found myself grateful, once again, for having discovered Morton’s stories. Now, as I have read the familiar passages for the second time, my impression has slightly changed.

This story is one I can appreciate & would recommend to those who have the time to spend inside its pages. This book is a gift for readers who love to read; the type of people who seek out stories in an effort to engulf themselves in the tale. However, as is sometimes the case with this style of literature; the story itself is flawed. Perhaps readers may forgive the silly nature of the secrets that the characters withhold or the daunting nature of the tranquillity that is caste & consumed with flames. If one is looking for a story that is ghastly & overwhelming, my suggestion would be to look elsewhere.

This admission is included because I felt tired while reading this story. The characters felt jumbled & silly—though I have used this word twice in so few sentences, I can hardly think of a better word to describe them. The problems they faced were certainly worth the time it took to study them however, by the end of the narrative, I felt that I hardly cared. Percy was a nuisance, always putting her priorities above those of her sisters, taunting her sisters with their captivity in the castle & for what? To keep the castle in her possession?

Of course, it would be cruel to poke fun at the instability of their housing situation. The sisters are described as being trapped in their family home both legally, due to a clause in the will & testament of their father, & out of guilt, that the lineage of the Blythe family will end with them. In a story as large-scale as this one, it is not easy to incorporate every aspect of the lives of each of the characters. For this reason, the clause that prevents the women from marrying, for fear of losing the castle, feels like a last-minute ploy to further engage the reader in feeling empathy.

While this is happening, Juniper roams the grounds & the small town like a ghost. I found her character interesting both times I met her on the page & rather than become frustrated at Morton’s lack of detail, I watched the time pass with my nose deep in the peer-reviewed articles that studied the conditions that may have affected Juniper.

I am not a medical professional, in any sense of the word, but I am a curious person. The description given to the reader of Juniper—her wide-set eyes, her brain’s inability to keep track of time, her heightened reliance on outbursts of violence—all made her a person that medical professionals may be better suited to diagnose than I, a wee reader.

After roaming the internet for medical articles, I came to find that nothing was as concrete as I would have liked. Juniper’s character & the years during which she lived made my search tedious. Did she have a visual impairment the likes of which affect a person similarly to vertigo? Does Juniper’s violence indicate a personality flaw or is this the result of poor socialization? Are Juniper’s facial features indicative of a developmental disorder or is she simply the product of a very tight-knit genealogy?

Morton introduces characters with just enough details to allow the reader to picture them but, not enough to form a diagnosis. Certainly, this does not necessarily take away from the story itself but, a more tedious reader (such as myself) will find the lack of fortitude in the characters an issue.

Will a reader be able to appreciate the budding romance that develops in Juniper’s life or will they wonder whether she is poorly prepared for the world? Is Juniper’s decrease in mental fortitude a result of trauma or the inevitable consequence of being a member of the Blythe family?

Overall, one can look past the wee whispers in the borders of the page, focusing instead on what matters: Meredith. Where is Meridth throughout this story? The narrator follows Edie as she attempts to break through the wall her mother has built. Can a reader appreciate her dedication to learning about her parent’s childhood? Will a reader enjoy watching Edie misunderstand the silence that has kept her mother’s pain locked away?

I would have enjoyed learning more about the girl who lived with the Blythe sisters. I would have appreciated understanding the logistics of a home that was impoverished & how the anger of Meredith’s parents shaped her to be the person that she was when we met her. The reader is not given these insights & there is a part of me that does not begrudge Morton for this. At the end of the day, Meridith has lived her life. She has made adult decisions; she has fallen in love & been vulnerable & intimate with other people. Who am I to deem this insufficient?

What I take away from this story is the beauty behind its efforts. Edie wanders back & forth through the past & the present to learn about a person she loves. The roads we take to better support someone with whom we are close, a person we treasure, are not always straightforward; we are likely to cause pain even if inadvertently. Perhaps, there is a portion of this story that will appeal to a reader who finds themselves in Edie’s shoes; a person who may wish to find comfort in the community of people who cherish someone they may never know entirely.

Ultimately, I appreciated this book. I liked the writing style & I liked the story. Though much of what takes place is slow-moving & uncomfortable, readers may find here, within the tender pages, the story of solidarity. The dashed hopes & dreams of many women wove their lives together beyond their understanding & over decades. It is heartening to see some form of reprieve, especially amid frustration. Yet, one knows that the end is not rose petals & hymns. The Blythe sisters die in a fire that consumes their home; they are never free from the stone that is their caretaker & prison.

I reflect, even now, on the death of these characters; people I did not truly appreciate & honestly, individuals I could not bring myself to know—they weren’t interested in that; it was too late. In the fields that shade the property, there are the bodies of men who were misunderstood & held captive by eons of shame. Men lost their minds to the stones that loomed in the form of a castle. Readers may remember the depths sorrow sinks to in order to drown all who wander freely around it.