#BlogTour-‘The Girl At The Window’ by Rowan Coleman

About the book..

A house full of history is bound to have secrets…

‘It’s a beautiful story and written with such wisdom and kindness, and it also happens to be set my most favourite part of the world! It’s incredibly smart, because like all good Gothic novels, it weaves together the past and the present and makes you realise just how much one relies on the other.‘ Joanna Cannon

Ponden Hall is a centuries-old house on the Yorkshire moors, a magical place full of stories. It’s also where Trudy Heaton grew up. And where she ran away from… Now, after the devastating loss of her husband, she is returning home with her young son, Will, who refuses to believe his father is dead. While Trudy tries to do her best for her son, she must also attempt to build bridges with her eccentric mother. And then there is the Hall itself: fallen into disrepair but generations of lives and loves still echo in its shadows, sometimes even reaching out to the present… A hauntingly beautiful story of love and hope, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Memory Book and The Summer of Impossible Things

Praise for Rowan Coleman and THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW:

‘A completely enthralling read. It has so many layers and they all capture your heart. In my opinion Rowan Coleman is one of the best writers of our time.’ Katie Fforde

‘I’m so happy because she’s written other books and its so lovely to find a writer you love who has a backlist’ Marian Keyes

‘This book will keep you wide-eyed and awake until dawn. A rare combination of sensitive and gripping. Like the ghosts of Ponden Hall the story will linger with you long after you close the pages.’ Carole Matthews

Thanks to Anne Cater and the Ebury team for my paperback copy of ‘‘The Girl At The Window’

WOW! That is my first honest reaction after finishing this novel, apart from immediately wanting to pull out every bookshelf searching for my copies of the Bronte sisters works.

A beautifully wrought meditation on grief, forgiveness and hope, this novel pulls on every heartstring and leaves you wanting to go to Ponden Hall yourself. Mixing folk tales of  Greybeard,Gytrash, known here in Wales as the Gwyllgi , and ghosts of previous residents, melding fact and fiction so seemlessly that you want it to be real, Rowan Coleman has created a love letter to the Brontes and this is quite clearly a passion project.

Using multiple narratives, she skillfully skips back and forth in time. Using main character Trudy Heaton,her younger self, Tru, and 17th century letters from a girl named Agnes, she explores the nature of hope, recovery and willingness to let things go. Trudy has returned to her family home of Ponden Hall following the presumed death of her husband-Abe was lost at sea after a plane crash. Having not been there since a cataclysmic argument with her mother-who is living there alone except for dog Mab-because she was a pregnant teen, she is facing an uncertain future as a single parent trying to deal with her grief alongside her son, Will’s, stubborn refusal to believe that his father is dead.

Finding Ponden in a worse state than she expected, she begins to carefully assess the renovation potential of bringing the famous house where the Brontes used to go to read into the tourist industry, much against her mother’s objections. But with little money to survive on-when Tru and Will arrive, the elcetric has been cut off leaving them effectively stranded-there doesn’t seem to be much option.

Marcus Ellis, a restoration expert , has been drafted in to help by Trudy, his passion for the Brontes not withstanding, he has a deep and abiding love for the house -his appearance gives Trudy someone to talk to, someone non-judgemental who peels her layers back as they rebuild Ponden.

”Very ancient buildings have a way of talking to you that means you have to stop and listen and work out what they want to tell you,don’t you think? So many secrets waiting to be uncovered.”

The reconstruction of the house parrallels the reconstruction of Trudy as she begins to make peace with where she is now, with her mother, with the house and its ghosts , the paradoxical restoration as she strips away the floors and makes what could be historic discoveries is wonderfully explored. As she recalls the beginning of her relationship with Abe, we, the reader, connect more with a character that hasn’t even set foot on the page, as it were, beyond being a memory,and emotionally invest ourselves in the younger versions so that when we are in the present, Abe’s loss is keenly felt.

The diary/letter entries by a girl named Agnes, show her arrival with a man named Henry Casson at Ponden Hall who inserts himself into the life of the widow there, pretending that the girl he has bought with him is his own. Her letters are a way of showing that she is not the ‘dumb urchin’ that he has brought along with him to disguise his true intent, and the suspense of what happens to Agnes mounts as the book continues.Henry is obviously determined to usurp the heir, Robert Wheaton, by marrying his mother but what part Agnes has to play in this keeps you swiftly turning the pages! How Rowan manages to juggle these 3 storylines whilst keeping you emotionally rooted to the characters is a revelation.

Flawlessly plotted, with a great gothic sensibility,ghosts ,folk tales.both historical ,and literary relevancy, plus a huge love story at its heart, I honestly feel that ‘The Girl At The Window’ is her best novel yet, this is a beautiful lead in to her next outing as Bella Ellis in ‘The Vanished Bride-The Bronte Mysteries’

About the author…

Rowan Coleman lives with her husband and their five children in a very full house in Hertfordshire.

She juggles writing novels with raising her family.

Rowan’s last novel, The Summer of Impossible Things, was selected for Zoe Ball’s ITV Book Club.

Rowan has an everlasting love for the Brontes, and is a regular visitor of Ponden Hall.

Links-https://rowancoleman.co.uk/

https://www.ponden-hall.co.uk/discover-ponden-hall/bronte-connections/

Twitter @rowancoleman

@EburyPublishing

@annecater