The Visitors

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All of the stories have a common thread, though I can’t say what it is for fear of giving too much away. They are all eerie, suspenseful, and give you a feeling of dread as you read them. They will also keep you guessing until the very end. Fictional perhaps, yet still somehow a memoir, as purely a memoir as any I have ever read. It captures the memories of a bright young girl in an extraordinary time and place, and, like real life, catapults from childhood to adulthood and beyond rapidly. Normally I would say the end felt rushed, but not this time - that actually felt like a deliberate choice, one that works well. Childhood felt like ages while we were in it, and then adulthood begins to fly by. Lucy's world is one that orbits an upper crust English society headed by Lord Carnarvon and filled out by an upper middle class that seems vaguely aware of the societal revolutions around them. There's a definitive "Downton Abby" vibe, as Beauman captures English Colonial era dialogue among the upper class gentry. Lord Carnarvon's real-life castle is, in fact, the location of Downton Abby itself.

The Visitors by Caroline Scott | Goodreads The Visitors by Caroline Scott | Goodreads

The key to an effective ghost story often lies in a satisfying ending. I could not find this in any of the tales in The Visitors Book. This was a gorgeous post-World War I story about Esme Nicholls, a war widow and housekeeper who visits Cornwall with her employer for the summer and discovers a beautiful landscape, an eclectic group of veterans, and a possible future for herself.Is it possible to imagine something so fully that it takes on a life of its own? So many systems run only on belief.” It's possible that a novel, like this one, does, too.’ The Jones family (from previous novel The Alien Swordmaster), enlisted by Juliet Parrish, travel to Washington, DC to uncover the plans of a Visitor spy who has a new Visitor-created metal alloy, Papinium, which is impervious to the Red dust, which he is using to coat secret tunnels into the free zone with, thus freeing up those areas to renewed Visitor invasion. [15] A Visitor experiment in breeding, if successful, will ravage the Eastern Coast Seaboards (causing serious environmental consequences). The experiment is based on the crivit species, which exists in the Visitor's home planet. [10] I was initially drawn to the story by the immersive descriptions of the Cornish landscape, flora, and fauna — all things that blew me away when I did a walk along the coastal path from St. Ives to Penzance, the area where this book takes place. As the chapters went on I became fascinated with the characters and their stories, especially Esme’s struggle between her past and her future and Rory's reflections on his time in the war.

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I can't really recommend The Visitors Book but suspect that it might intrigue those who enjoy Hannah's crime fiction and want to sample how she handles another genre entirely. It's difficult to know where to start with a Caroline Scott book but perhaps I'll begin by saying that as usual I was captivated by the prose. If you harbored a childhood desire to be an archaeologist and watched The Mummy movies for more than just Brendan Fraser, you may well enjoy this novel about the controversial discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Beauman does a great job with her 1920s Luxor and England settings, and it’s fun to see Highclere Castle, the residence of Lord Carnarvon, get another fictional use (it’s where Downton Abbey is filmed). It is the summer of 1923 and Esme Nicholls, a war widow, is visiting Cornwall, the home county of her late husband. Like many women she is grieving and living with the consequences of World War One, as are the group of men and women she stays with. Their story is told through the narratives of the characters, interspersed with Esme's newspaper articles on the flora and fauna, and excerpts from the memoirs of one of the male war veterans. There's a twist that comes about halfway through the story, and even though I saw it coming I still felt the impact. This is definitely a character-driven story (where Cornwall feels like another member of the cast of characters) full of self-discovery and the journeys we take to overcome grief and embrace life.

Esme Nicholls is to spend the summer in Cornwall. Her late husband Alec, who died fighting in the war, grew up in Penzance, and she’s hoping to learn more about the man she loved and lost. What I hated: Boy was this a tedious read - just way way way too much! Too wordy, many boring parts that could have been cut. I also didn't like how it would hop from past to present without any kind of indicator such as a chapter title to let you know, so I often had to muddle through and reread some parts to get myself in the right timeframe. The novel contains the most beautiful descriptions of the Cornish coast and countryside. You feel as though you right there, so vividly are things described: you can hear the sea, see the drifts of cow parsley along the lanes, feel the sultry heat of the Cornish summer. The Visitors is a book that rewards the reader on so many different levels. It’s a meditation on grief, betrayal and loss but also an affirmation that, despite discovering what you always believed to be true may have been an illusion, it is possible to find the strength to start over again and the courage to follow your heart.