I picked this up in my local charity shop, which has a 'buy one get one free' offer on at the moment. I'm a sucker for a book offer... This looked like a light read, and had the tagline 'The haunting, evocative saga of the lives of three generations of women'. I do enjoy a good generation saga every now and again, so I gave this a go!
I was right - it was a light read, but also slightly confusing in the way that it was written so I had to concentrate. The main story concerns Paddy (Patricia), 40 years old in the 1920's and having to let the family home to make some money. It covers the period of a year in which her father dies, she interacts with the new family who rent the house and gradually makes friends with the farmer whose property adjoins the house - there has been a long running feud between the two families, but the reasons for this are not known to Paddy. Every now and again we hear the thoughts of her mother and Grandmother about what happened to them when they lived in the great house - over the course of the book we find out what caused the feud, and how each generation of women has kept the house going.
Overall it was a good read - I kept going, wanting to find out what had really happened to each of the women. It could also be considered slightly depressing though, as none of the characters were particularly happy. All had problems in their lives, and there wasn't a traditional 'happy' ending - but then there's something to be said for a book which is true to life, rather than tying up all the stories at the end. I felt that the characters lives would keep going after the end of the book, and that's what real family sagas are like!
I won't rush to read more books by Sarah Woodhouse, but if I come across any I'll probably give them a go.
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