The Wildling Sisters

May 15, 2017
Newlywed Jessie Tucker hopes a move to the countryside will help her find her footing with her teenage stepdaughter, Bella, who seems haunted by memories of her late mother, Mandy.Yet the move to Applecote Manor, far from the bustle of London, instead raises more ghosts. Over 50 years ago, in the mid-1950s, 12-year-old Audrey Wilde simply disappeared from the grounds of Applecote, leaving her parents, Sybil and Perry, devastated and housebound. Five years after Audrey's vanishing, Sybil's glamorous, scandalous, and financially pinched sister-in-law, Bunny, takes a job in Marrakesh, so Sybil takes in her four nieces for the summer, a summer that will drive inexorably toward tragedy. Flora, the beguiling 17-year-old eldest sister, attracts the attentions of both Tom, an easygoing young man headed for a military career, and Harry, his wealthy, rakishly handsome friend. Outraged at the unfairness of her sister's monopoly on male attention, second sister Pam spends the summer vying for Tom's eye. Margot, who's 15, finds herself drawn to Harry, who gazes at her even as he courts Flora. Yet Margot also bears an uncanny resemblance to Audrey, which draws her into Sybil's unsettling fantasies that Audrey will return. Young Dot, only 12, hovers, neglected by her lovesick sisters. Chase (Black Rabbit Hall, 2016) shifts between Margot's and Bella's investigations into Audrey's disappearance, eerily escalating the tension as clues surface across time, including a cache of rain-smeared letters, a heart-shaped button, and broken spectacles. In the 21st-century sections, told in the third person from Jessie's perspective, the atmosphere thickens as a mysterious woman lurks on the edges of Applecote's grounds, and Bella isolates herself in Audrey's old bedroom, now riddled with relics of Mandy. In Margot's first-person sections, the investigation leads to a shocking night of violence. A bewitching gothic tale of sisters and secrets.

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December 1, 2017

"Houses are never just houses," says Margot Wilde. In this gripping modern gothic novel that takes place in two different time periods, a house becomes practically a character. In 1959, 15-year-old Margot and her three sisters visit their aunt and uncle's country house, Applecote Manor, for the first time since their cousin Audrey disappeared five years earlier. In the present day, Jessie and her husband, Will, buy Applecote to escape from crowded, crime-ridden London. In Margot's story, told in the first person, Margot is drawn to Audrey's bedroom, which Audrey's mother keeps in pristine condition, waiting for the lost girl's return. Meanwhile, Margot and her sisters' loyalties are divided for the first time when they meet two handsome young neighbors. In Jessie's story, told in the third person, Applecote is meant to be a clean slate for her family, but her husband is constantly being pulled back to London, and her teenage stepdaughter, Bella, is fixated on her dead mother and the 50-year-old mystery of the missing Audrey. The two narratives converge as the house reveals its secrets. VERDICT Fans of Kate Morton will love this eerie, multilayered tale of young love, jealousy, and mystery.-Sarah Flowers, formerly at Santa Clara County Library, CA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
The summer of 1959 is different from past summers the four Wilde sisters have spent at Applecote Manor in the Cotswolds. This is their first visit since Audrey, their 12-year-old cousin, disappeared without a trace five years earlier. Added to that, the older Wilde girls find themselves competing for the attention of two boys from a neighboring estate. As the sisters try to work their way through this new wrinkle in their close relationship, Aunt Sybil seems to find comfort in treating 15-year-old Margot Wilde like her missing child. Many years later, Applecote Manor is purchased by Jessie and Will Tucker. Jessie hopes that by leaving London and moving to the country she can escape from the shadow of Will's deceased first wife. But Will's job keeps him away most of the week, and Bella, Jessie's sullen 16-year-old stepdaughter, seems determined to sabotage the move. Margot's narrative alternates with chapters relating Jessie's growing fears that Applecote Manor might not be the haven she was hoping for. Chase's novel, following Black Rabbit Hall (2016), is a solid addition to the suspense subgenre of old-English-country-house-with-secrets tales.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2017

Chase, whose gothic-twisty Black Rabbit Hall was a No. 2 LibraryReads pick, offers an atmospheric successor set at shadowed Applecote Manor. In June 1959, four sisters arrive there, anticipating a pleasant summer holiday with their aunt and uncle. Alas, cousin Audrey's disappearance five years previously still inks the manor's every corner. Fifty years later, a new family moves in and encounters rumors about its dark past.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017

The bond among the Wilde sisters--Isla, Maggie, Violet, and Doti--is strong enough to allow them to leave their mother's protection for one short summer. As they travel to Applecote Manor in the English countryside, the home of their aunt and uncle, the unresolved disappearance of their cousin Audrey draws them even closer. In the present-day story of Applecote Manor, Jesse struggles with parenting a toddler and a teen stepdaughter. VERDICT In this latest story from Chase (Black Rabbit Hall), the female protagonists successfully try on the roles of sister, cousin, stepchild, daughter, and mother without being crushed by the weight of jealousy or fear.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.