A Place For Us (Part 1) By Harriet Evans

[amazon_link id=”B00KIPSM98″ target=”_blank” ] [/amazon_link]’A Place For Us’ is the latest book by Harriet Evans.

The day Martha Winter decided to tear apart her family began like any other day. The house has soft, purple wisteria twining around the door. You step inside. The hall is cool after the hot summer’s day. The welcome is kind, and always warm. Yet something makes you suspect life here can’t be as perfect as it seems. After all, the brightest smile can hide the darkest secret. But wouldn’t you pay any price to have a glorious place like this? Welcome to Winterfold. Martha Winter’s family is finally coming home.

‘A Place For Us’ has been released in quite a unique book by Headline. Instead of sending out the one novel, the story has been cleverly divided into four parts, that will most definately keep the reader on their toes.

I read the first part of the book on a flight to Toulouse and at just over 120 pages, this small extract gives the reader the perfect taster of the characters and the plot line.

The story is seen from the perspective of the members of the Winters family on the lead up their mother’s Martha’s 80th birthday who has sent mysterious party invitations informing everyone that there will be an important announcement.

The mother/grandmother of the family is Martha, a caring character who seems to have lived a life with secrets and regrets and can no longer hide them others. Her husband David is a cartoonist who created the successful character Wilbur the Dog who has been loved for years but crippled with pains, he is frustrated that he can no longer properly work on his creation. Their children Florence, Daisy and Bill are quite a mixed bag of people and for me are the most interesting of the story. Bill, the eldest of the family is a quiet, submissive man and refuses to get into confrontations with his second and much younger wife Karen, who is unhappy with their life. His only daughter Lucy, longs to be a successful journalist but her meek personality means that she finds it hard to adapt in the fast-paced and blunt industry. Meanwhile Daisy, the most volatile and troubled of the family left her daughter Cat to be brought up by Martha and David whilst she went off working with the missions. Florence now lives in Florence, a lecturer at university and seems to be a bit of a fantasist. The Winter family are an intriguing bunch of people and it seems that everyone in the family has a secret to hide or a skeleton in their closet.

I loved part 1 of the story and with a mixture of eclectic characters that made for riveting reading this short tale was the perfect introduction to the Winters family and most certainly left the reader lusting for more.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”B00KIPSM98″ target=”_blank” ]A Place for Us Part 1 from Amazon as well as parts 2, 3 and 4. [/amazon_link]