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The night before it all begins, Jude has the dream again ...Can dreams be passed down through families? As a child Jude suffered a recurrent nightmare: running through a dark forest, crying for her mother. Now her six-year-old niece, Summer, is having the same dream, and Jude is frightened for her. A successful auctioneer, Jude is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband. When she's asked to value a collection of scientific instruments and manuscripts belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely 18th century astronomer, she leaps at the chance to escape London for the untamed beauty of Norfolk, where she grew up. As Jude untangles Wickham's tragic story, she discovers threatening links to the present. What have Summer's nightmares to do with Starbrough folly, the eerie crumbling tower in the forest from which Wickham and his adopted daughter Esther once viewed the night sky? With the help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude searches for answers in the wild, haunting splendour of the Norfolk woods. Dare she leave behind the sadness in her own life, and learn to love again?
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Richard & Judy's Review
Judy
This book is a romantic’s dream. A young widow (34) dating an ambitious city-type, full of career-thrust but with little care or tenderness for her, is suddenly diverted from London to Norfolk.
The reason? She works at an auctioneer’s firm in London, as an expert in eighteenth century books. One day she gets a phone call from a man who says he has a large collection of scientific volumes from that period which he would like to sell.
Norfolk is where our heroine, Jude, comes from. Indeed she hails from very near the same village in which the ancient manuscripts lie. So she agrees to spend a weekend down at the old, slightly impoverished manor house to value the books, journals and scientific instruments which the owner hopes will preserve the old house, which desperately needs a new roof.
But Jude has been having nightmares since she was a child. Lost in woodlands, searching for her mother. Now she discovers that her six year old niece, Summer, the apparently fatherless daughter of Jude’s sister Claire, who still lives in Norfolk, is having the same troubling dreams.
But the mystery of the manuscripts at Starbrough Hall pales into insignificance when she discovers the mansion’s folly, an enormous tower, crumbling in the woods, with a fearsomely supernatural reputation which keeps the locals well away.
One of the many fascinating aspects of this hugely readable book is its genuine knowledge of eighteenth century ventures into the newly fashionable science of astronomy. Rachel Hore’s research and her mastery of the subject is deeply impressive. You feel totally safe in her hands.
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Richard
This incredibly detailed story follows a family line from the eighteenth century to the present day. The ancestor, Anthony Wickham, who produced wonderful accounts of stargazing, was in fact assisted by his adopted daughter, Esther.
But who is Esther? This question is at the heart of the novel. And how is Esther connected to the heroine, Jude, and to her niece, Summer?
What are we to make of Jude’s grandmother’s tales of her meetings as a young girl with Tamsin, a gypsy girl from a camp of Romany travellers which visited the area each year?
What is the significance of the necklace of golden stars which Jude’s grandmother has kept secret since her girlhood?
I really enjoyed this book. It’s clever, haunting, ghostly, and contains a huge amount of information about astronomy; how fashionable it became to thinkers and philosophers in the eighteenth century. You feel very confident with the writer’s research, and there’s even knowing nod to astrology as well.
Fundamentally, this is a story about a family with emotional problems, resolved thanks to the unravelling of the past – and a strange and supernatural one.
And, as Judy has reminded me to tell you, it is a love story. A romance. And hugely enjoyable.
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Rachel Hore - WHSmith Exclusive Interview
An Exclusive WHSmith interview with 'A Place of Secrets' author Rachel Hore.
"I am thrilled that my novel 'A Place of Secrets' has been chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, which is exclusive to WHSmith. It's
the story of a yougn woman called 'Jude' who has come to a crisis in her life, where she feels trapped, that she can't move on until she has sorted
out a series of mysteries to do with the past and her family and found out who she is..."
Rachel Hore - Biography/Bibilography
Biography
Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, Norfolk. She is married to writer D.J. Taylor and they have three sons. She teaches Publishing at the University of East Anglia and reviews regularly for the national press.
Bibliography
Her first novel was The Dream House. Her second, The Memory Garden, was published in August 2007 and was a bestseller. Her third, The Glass Painter's Daughter, was shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year 2010. A Place of Secrets is her forth novel and will be published in September.
Rachel Hore - WHSmith Q & A
Do you allow anyone to read your books before being published other than the publisher and is there a reason behind that?
I feel very vulnerable showing my work-in-progress to anyone, but sometimes it has to be done when I'm unsure of the effect of a section I've written or if I need confirmation from an expert that I've got my research right. I'm very careful about whom I go to for feedback, though. Sometimes even well-meant comments can reverberate round my head and undermine the creative process!
What literary inspirations do you draw from?
Like many writers I'm a magpie. I'll get inspiration from whatever I'm reading just by noticing how other authors achieve their effects, even if their books and their writing styles are completely different from mine. I don't copy - it's vital to develop your true voice as a writer and to tell your own characters' stories in your own way - but reading does inform and enrich what you write.
What is the best book you have ever read and how did you come to that conclusion?
Thinking of it purely as a work of literature, the Bible. Whatever your own spiritual persuasion, for rich language, dynamic characters, powerful drama, poetry, challenging ideas and inspiration, you can't beat it. Otherwise, some of the books I loved as a child are 'best' in that they're part of my mental make-up. I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett so many times, and was an avid member of the Puffin Club (do they still have that?) I can't think how I managed to miss out on the Moomin books by Tove Janssen, which I've only recently discovered and now read to my children. Vivid, warm, funny and enchanting, they offer a magical and reassuring world for children to return to again and again.
If you could work with any author who would it be?
I'm not sure that most authors would like to work with anyone else. Writing is by its very nature a solitary activity. Maybe Shakespeare would have allowed me to help with the crowd scenes when he didn't have the time! Otherwise, I'd love to interview Hilary Mantel. Or be on a panel at a literary festival with Stephen Fry; that must be fun.
How do you manage to get inside the heads of all your different characters in order to portray them truthfully?
The most marvellous thing is when I just hear their voice in my head talking to me, and that must happen through some mysterious psychological process. Often it's a more painstaking affair and can involve reading and researching the background to the novel I want to write and thinking and thinking about how my characters are likely to be until I can imagine them speaking to me in the world that I'm making. Sometimes a character doesn't come to me very clearly, and I have to write my way into them and find out what they're like.
Who is your favourite character from any book and why?
Lucy Snowe from Charlotte Bronte's Villette, which is an extraordinarily moving novel inspired by the author's own experience of unrequited love. Lucy is so tenderly drawn I feel that I am her when I read it. She was in my mind when I wrote about Fran in The Glass Painter's Daughter.
How do you decide on the names of your characters?
Names are so terribly important in novels, aren't they? Sometimes I come across lovely names in books or real life and squirrel them away until an appropriate character comes along to claim them, like Summer for the little girl in A Place of Secrets. I always have to think whether a name is right for the period or for the character's station in life. Occasionally I use a name with a meaning that's relevant to the story, such as Esther for my eighteenth-century star-gazer, which refers to the myrtle, with its white, star-shaped flowers.
Do you have any little quirks or funny habits when you are writing?
I arm myself with a large cup of filter coffee and off I go to my computer. Oh, I'm fussy about the font I type in. It can't be too plain or too ornate. Bookman Old Style is quite good. Times New Roman is too dull.
How long did the book take you to write?
Fourteen months. Four months to research and plan, ten to write.
What writing plans do you have for next year?
I'm a third of the way through a novel that's due to be finished next April.
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