This is Melanie Rose's second book, the first being It's Magic! which was also very well-received.
In this book a young woman is caught in a freak snowstorm while on the way to visit her aunt and uncle. Her car falls into a raging icy river but she and her cat survives because they are both thrown out. Unconscious, she is found by a man, Vincent, who carries her into his house and looks after her. However she finds out that the accident has knocked off her memories and she cannot remember who she is or where she's from. What is strange about all this is that Vincent has a young daughter who has not talked for two years (because of her sister's death and her mother's disappearance ), but who started talking with the young woman as though nothing had ever happened. Meanwhile, Tara, Vincent's housekeeper is very suspicious of their new houseguest.
Later Tara's brother Colin, a psychoanalyst, tries to jerk the young woman's memory by using hypnosis but this has a surprising result! Instead of regaining her memory, she regresses into a previous life.
I think the part of the regression of “Kate” by Colin is really interesting. You can tell that Melanie Rose has done her research for this book, and it comes across in the way she writes “Kate’s” regressions, and the detail of the Victorian time she regresses to is perfect. I was really interested to read about Kitty's story as well as "Kate's "story. It was a good addition to the novel, and I am so impressed by how well Rose has weaved all these different threads together to create such a fabulous read.
One brilliant thing about this novel was how multi-dimensional it was. As well as the mystery story of who our leading lady was (which actually seemed to take a back seat for a little while in the book), there were a few other stories in there too. One was to do with the family that “Kate” stays with – Jadie is very ill and hasn’t spoken for years, yet speaks to Kate like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. The story around this is actually quite heart-breaking and the way it slowly unfolds is so tenderly done that you are completely captivated by it. It is a tough area that is dealt with very delicately by the writer, and I think she has tackled them extremely well. She manages to make us see the heart break of the little girl and her father as well as the housekeeper and she does it so well too.
If you haven’t discovered this author yet, then I definitely recommend you seek out a copy of this book because it is an amazing read.
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