REVIEW: Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
Two women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.
It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea. For both, it’s a new beginning in the country, and together they’re bringing Carreg Cottage back to life. Yet Ellen can’t hide a creeping unease. There’s the ominous iconography painted on their bedroom ceiling, the sinister doll hidden away in the chimney. And Tony seems more familiar with the peculiar villagers than he’s letting on.
Meanwhile, after nearly a decade away, young Iris returns to Cornwall seeking sanctuary in memories and longing for what she lost as a child. It was here that her mother died on the moors under a shroud of mystery and rumor—and was last seen alive in the isolated, long-shuttered cottage the Wyldes now call home.
Discovering more about each other and themselves, Ellen and Iris soon unite in a quest to uncover every dark secret this village—and the West Country mist—holds before it destroys them.
Dear Ms. Ashford,
Well that was some eerie goodness. I wasn’t exactly sure if it would be gothic, or supernatural, or what but despite the slow start, I liked it.
Two women, a newly-wed and a runaway, arrive almost simultaneously in St. Ives, Cornwall in 1946. Ellen and her husband are both artists although Ellen sometimes wonders if her husband views her merely as an artisan rather than a true artist. Iris has had enough of being restricted by her father and uses the money she got from selling something that was left to her in order to fund her intentions of continuing her own art studies. Once there, they slowly become involved in something that resonates from years ago and affects both of them in ways they never expected.
I had no idea that this is actually based (somewhat) on a real event. The start is a bit slow but I can understand why. There is a lot going on, many pieces to the puzzle, and I appreciate that everything isn’t dumped on the reader at one time. Some clues only become important in the final stretch but I said “Aha!” several times. Another reason that struck me is that the leisurely beginning might be because the main characters have no idea what is going to happen and keep trying to explain away (as most people would) the strange feelings and sense of doom they feel.
There are many characters and I was surprised by a few of them. Who is the villain and who is the (slightly more) innocent bystander? Some people have done things in the past and lived to regret them while others are still caught up in what happened eight years ago. Miscommunication is also thrown in and I finally just had to sit back and wait to see what would happen.
I like that the book can be viewed as religious or not. There are possible explanations to what happened and is happening that could go either way. The Vicar is an interesting character whom I came to admire while not all of the artists are as bad as they might initially appear. Ellen and Iris are women forging their own paths and artistic freedoms. I felt that Ellen and Tony’s relationship was a bit flat and struggled to see why Ellen married him so quickly.
Yes the start is a bit stately but the intensity ramps up fairly steadily until by the end things are galloping along. It’s not surprising what happens but I was still reading intensely to see how all the various twists and turns of the plot would be worked together. While this isn’t something that I think will bother my sleep, I can easily see how it might have affected people eighty years ago before the counterculture drug age and when artists were still seen as being sensitive and easily overset. B-
~Jayne
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