The beginning was idilic... Driving around the French countryside with a lovely man and just having a great time. This only caused me acute distress when they arrived back in England to their charming English country home to find that everything wasn't going to stay so delightful.
I felt total empathy with our narrator...I felt myself experiencing all her emotions along the way... With her terrible sense of helpless awkwardness at the start; being out of her depth and feeling like her husband thought of her as nothing more than a pleasant accompaniment to the house and not as a genuine lover or life companion. Also feeling like some other woman had left such a great impression and she was living pathetically in her shadow. The relief when all her fears are proved unfounded was incredible. But at the same time such a sense of grief for all the time lost, and sense of regret for never confronting her feeling at the beginning - perhaps none of this would ever have had to happen. I wonder in life how many people miss out on things just by jumping to conclusions and deciding it's all better left unsaid?
It was a really easy read, yet unlike other 'easy reads' was really well written. The descriptions of Mauderly were really vivid and I felt like I was right there in the big old misty forest with the dogs. I could see the dusty old rooms of Rebecca and feel all the undercurrents of emotion and curiosity running through the friends and family who came to visit.
The novel gripped me throughout... There was the perfect balance of questions answered and thoughts left brooding to keep you reading more. There were twists in this novel that I never saw coming and genuinely sent shivers down my spine!
Reading this novel was a pleasure from start to finish.
A nice break from endless revision.
Execpt that it wasn't endless and I'm flying to Geneva tomorrow.
Sweet.
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