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The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson
3.5 Stars
From The Book:
A deeply chilling, novel of psychological suspense explores the tragedies—past and present haunting a picturesque country cottage. Mary Coles and her husband, Graham, have just moved to a cottage on the edge of a small village. The house hasn’t been lived in for years, but they are drawn to its original features and surprisingly large garden, which stretches down into a beautiful apple orchard. It’s idyllic, remote, picturesque: exactly what they need to put the horror of the past behind them.
One hundred and fifty years earlier, a huge oak tree was felled in front of the cottage during a raging storm. Beneath it lies a young man with a shock of red hair, presumed dead—surely no one could survive such an accident. But the red-haired man is alive, and after a brief convalescence is taken in by the family living in the cottage and put to work in the fields. The children all love him, but the eldest daughter, Eliza, has her reservations. There’s something about the red-haired man that sits ill with her. A presence. An evil. Back in the present, weeks after moving to the cottage and still drowning beneath the weight of insurmountable grief, Mary Coles starts to sense there’s something in the house. Children’s whispers, footsteps from above, half-caught glimpses of figures in the garden. A young man with a shock of red hair wandering through the orchard. Has Mary’s grief turned to madness? Or have the events that took place so long ago finally come back to haunt her?
My Views:
It was a very good story...well written and well told... however the constant switching from past to present was a bit off setting. I love supernatural, physiological suspense stories and this one was building to a stunning conclusion...but then it was like the door closed and someone said "That's all folks." We never found out what actually happened to the villain or what the future was to hold for the couple or the family in the past. That was disappointing and it lost the book half a star. Still very worth the reading time.
