Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret.
Evacuated from London as a 12-year-old girl, Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe and taken to live at Milderhurst Castle with the Blythe family: Juniper, her twin sisters, and their father, Raymond.
Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother's riddle. She, too, is drawn to Milderhurst Castle and the eccentric sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiancé in 1941 plunged her into madness.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. For the truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it....
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"This was my first Kate Morton book and she has captivated me with her beautiful, descriptive writing and well developed characters. 'The Distant Hours' is a gothic tale, set in the archetypal eerie, gothic castle with secrets and mad women, and revolves around main protagonist Edie, her mother and three sisters who inhabit the castle. It has a dual time frame and is set in the 1940s and 1990s and it all begins with a letter that was sent in 1940s but isn't delivered until the 1990s. One of the best bits for me was the story within the story, the fictitious children's book 'The True History of the Mud Man' that is an important element to the novel. Without giving too much away, the novel is full of atmosphere and suspense with twists and turns that kept me entertained for hours and I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to read Kate Morton's other books."
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Sue (5 out of 5 stars)