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sharonleavy's review
3.0
Berkshire, England, 1888. Martha is living with her cousin Helena Perkshaw and her family after the death of her parents. She is 18, and is acting as a Governess for Helena's young daughter Beatrice.
London, England, 2010. Juliet is a professional photographer, travelling all over the world to shoot photographs for a wildlife magazine. She is asked to house-sit in Florence as a favour to her mother.
Martha falls for local doctor Edward, and he is similarly smitten. But when Helena and her husband James decide to move the family (including Martha) to Ireland, Martha is heartbroken.
Juliet falls for Logan, the son of the lady she is house-sitting for. They have a whirlwind romance, and Logan decides to move back to the family home in Co. Monaghan.
It is this family home that links Martha and Juliet - Carissima is a beautiful old house that holds many secrets, and links the two women. The blurb says "They need each other".
Well, I don't really agree. This is a long book given the content - over 400 pages. In my opinion it needs another edit - it's far too long. The house is what links the women - but I was at 58% before either woman even got to the house. Both romances are instant - and while Martha's is somewhat believable given the era, I found Juliet's unbelievable. I didn't like Logan, and I didn't believe that they fell for each other that quickly. One insta-romance in a novel is bad, but two? No. I wanted to find out what happened to Martha, she was likeable, but I couldn't have cared less if Juliet blew up and took Logan with her. The couples weren't couples long enough for me to care if they would survive their issues. For about the last 20% of the book, things took a turn in genre - and you'll have to suspend your disbelief if you want to find out what happens to both ladies. The immediate change in atmosphere when the setting changed to Carissima was hard to swallow, given that the first part of the book was more historical time-slip romance.
While I did find this long-winded and full of completely unnecessary side plots (the caretaker, the cook hurting her hand, the burning of the church, the water diviner), something about Martha's story made me want to keep reading. In ways, this reminded me of some of Susanna Kearlsey or Helen Moorhouse's work. It's a 2.5 for me, rounding up to a 3. It's not a bad book at all, it might make a good holiday read. I would read more of Maria Murphy's work - but I do think that this would have fared much better had it been a hundred pages shorter.
Thank you to Poolbeg for providing me with a digital copy to review.
London, England, 2010. Juliet is a professional photographer, travelling all over the world to shoot photographs for a wildlife magazine. She is asked to house-sit in Florence as a favour to her mother.
Martha falls for local doctor Edward, and he is similarly smitten. But when Helena and her husband James decide to move the family (including Martha) to Ireland, Martha is heartbroken.
Juliet falls for Logan, the son of the lady she is house-sitting for. They have a whirlwind romance, and Logan decides to move back to the family home in Co. Monaghan.
It is this family home that links Martha and Juliet - Carissima is a beautiful old house that holds many secrets, and links the two women. The blurb says "They need each other".
Well, I don't really agree. This is a long book given the content - over 400 pages. In my opinion it needs another edit - it's far too long. The house is what links the women - but I was at 58% before either woman even got to the house. Both romances are instant - and while Martha's is somewhat believable given the era, I found Juliet's unbelievable. I didn't like Logan, and I didn't believe that they fell for each other that quickly. One insta-romance in a novel is bad, but two? No. I wanted to find out what happened to Martha, she was likeable, but I couldn't have cared less if Juliet blew up and took Logan with her. The couples weren't couples long enough for me to care if they would survive their issues. For about the last 20% of the book, things took a turn in genre - and you'll have to suspend your disbelief if you want to find out what happens to both ladies. The immediate change in atmosphere when the setting changed to Carissima was hard to swallow, given that the first part of the book was more historical time-slip romance.
While I did find this long-winded and full of completely unnecessary side plots (the caretaker, the cook hurting her hand, the burning of the church, the water diviner), something about Martha's story made me want to keep reading. In ways, this reminded me of some of Susanna Kearlsey or Helen Moorhouse's work. It's a 2.5 for me, rounding up to a 3. It's not a bad book at all, it might make a good holiday read. I would read more of Maria Murphy's work - but I do think that this would have fared much better had it been a hundred pages shorter.
Thank you to Poolbeg for providing me with a digital copy to review.
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