A poignant and engrossing saga that kept me interested till the end and root for the characters.
I liked the well crafted plot, the vivid historical background and the fleshed out cast of characters.
A good read, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Wonderful, sweet family saga. Really enjoyed this read.

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is a great tale of life in a mining town and the two young people who live and live there.Tommy and Josie are two young people whose futures have always been tied to the mines of their fathers and their grandfathers. These two are linked in their desires to go beyond the expectations of the village. Especially gripping is the description by Tommy of his first day in the mine a day after his fourteenth birthday. This story has many a turn of the dial with consequences of what they term by-blows that is landed gentry dallying with local lasses and the results still living under foot in this instance. A fateful dinner of the mine owners trying to stop a strike sets the stage for a standoff worthy of Hollywood. Happy reading

Tracy's books just keep on getting better and better! She has become one of my favourite authors and can be always be relied on to write a fascinating, compelling read. The House at Silvermoor is no exception. Tracy Rees's attention to historical detail is fantastic - one of the great strengths of her books - and she really knows how to evoke the period with her descriptive writing. I will be recommending this book to my friends. I loved it so much I have ordered the paperback!

Wonderful saga, just the way I like it. Great characters that pull you in and you feel sad because it finished.
Great writing. I'd highly recommend.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

What's wrong with wanting more from life? What's wrong with questioning is this my lot in society? What's wrong with not wanting to follow in the Family's Legacy? Why cant there be more?
For young Tommy and Josie these are the fundamental questions you don't ask- or think about. You have to know your rightful earned place in the world. For Tommy its deep underground as a miner. For Josie, it's to be a wife and a mother to a miner.

So begins this aching story of longing for something more, set in Rural England, 1897 to 1905.

Tracy Rees recreates,with historical accuracy, the lives these poor mining families led. Filled with harsh moments, brutalities, and want, these characters don't leave you.

On the flip side, we meet the wealthy landowners and mine operators. These families have problems and secrets of their own, only they live behind the gates of their great houses, finely dressed, sparing no expense in the industry of their households.

These two worlds collide, creating dark consequences and sinister wants.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, Quercus Books and the author Ms. Tracy Rees for the opportunity to read this Advanced Readers Copy of "The House At Silvermoor". The opinions expressed in this review are mine alone.

A sweeping saga full of wonderful characters, plot and pace. I fell just a little bit in love with Tommy who wanted so much more than his lot in life.

1897 and 1905. In 1897 things were engrained in a system. One knew "one's place". Most people were very happy with the arrangement. You were born into an occupation, however hard, however overbearing your superiors you just went on. You lived in the same village, married someone from the same village and the whole pattern is repeated. Once in a while you get a changeling. Someone who questions, who wants a better life or a different life and then things get very tough for that person. Surprisingly the worst was from the family itself who could not understand why you wanted to bring the wrath of your betters on your entire clan, by wanting something better for yourself.

This was the hard part of the book, but was a fact of life in 1897. Josie was a bright spark and with Tommy also within a coal mining family in Yorkshire wanted education, wanted to see what the world could offer other than the mundane. This did not sit well with either family and this story chronicles their life story, their adventures, their search into their ancestry not always with favourable results and their life and happy future.

I loved reading about the various characters of this book, the lifestyle of both the rich and the grindingly poor. Surprising that revolutions did not happen more often given the condition of the majority of the people.



This was history as well as a saga of a village and family.

Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. Well researched historical fiction that made a great story. My first book by this author. Definitely one to watch.

A good read which has obviously been very well researched. This is an interesting story with engaging characters which was a pleasure to read.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

My thanks to Quercus Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The House at Silvermoor’ by Tracy Rees in exchange for an honest review.

“England, 1899. A new century is dawning, and two young friends are about to enter into a world of money, privilege and family secrets.”

This is one of those sweeping historical family dramas that I find very engaging. Once started I found myself so caught up in the story that I read it in a single day.

It opens in 1897 and concludes in 1905 with its main setting a South Yorkshire mining village. Silvermoor of the title is a local stately home and residence of the Sedgwick family, who play an important role.

The two young friends mentioned above are Tommy Green and Josie Westgate, who meet when they are both thirteen, and how their lives and circumstances change as they grow into young adulthood. The fortunes of the local landed gentry are also involved as the years pass into the early twentieth century.

A very well researched novel that also examines the social issues associated with the coal industry in Britain during this period including how workers sought improved working conditions and a living wage for this dangerous occupation.

Tracy Rees has dedicated this novel to the memory of her grandfather, who had been a coal miner in South Wales. This resonated with me as my grandfather had also been a coal miner here in the Midlands.

Overall, this is the kind of novel that I expect to have a wide appeal across generations. It is well written and feels authentic in its depiction of the period.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Written at the close of the 19th century this book is deeply researched and focuses on families in the coal mines. It shares the horrors of the coal mines, falling in love and raising a family with always in the back of the mind what could happen at any moment to the miner. This book was a highly enjoyable and well researched historical novel. A quick flowing read.

I love Tracy Rees and this book did not disappoint. A great family story set in a mining community. Rees does a brilliant job of telling a story while having lots going on and not making you feel like it’s too much. Loved the characters. Thoroughly enjoyed.

A lovely heartwarming tale about life in several Yorkshire coal mining villages . A romance is thwarted from the start due to two people whose lives are mapped out already.

Tommy is expected to do down the mines like all the men in his family before him, but he wants more out of life. Josie lives in a similar village and sees how the rich mine owner in the area are

Josie, living in a neighbouring village in the shadow of a different mine to Tommy, she sees the effect that this rich mine owner is having on the locals and realises that life has to change When Tommy and Josie meet and share their stories, there is a lot of passion to really make a difference. That's before they go to visit Heston Manor and Silvermoor?

This is such a rich and fascinatingly woven story which must have taken some time to research! Life in the mines was harsh and the recreation of this kind of life was amazing to read. Born and bred in the north, I have been to Beamish (the museum which helped the author write her book) and you can tell she's done some research and then some. The scenes of working underground and the everyday affect on the workers is carefully crafted.

A wonderful tale of family and hardship, rich and poor, the hard work of those in the mines and so much more.

I love, love, loved this book and would give it more than five stars if I could. It’s about Tommy Green, who is sure he isn’t meant to spend his life in the coal mines. And then there’s Tommy’s friend, Josie, whose life has an overwhelming story to tell. We meet Tommy’s family, Josie’s family, the Sedgewicks, the Barridges, Coralie, Cedric, Dulcie, Manus, Latimer, rich people, poor – very poor – people and so many more as we pass through the interconnected lives of all of these people.

The story is packed with interest as well as excellent and authentic writing. I didn’t think I was claustrophobic, but when the author described conditions in the mine as Tommy descended into the tunnels on his first day below ground, I could feel my chest tightening, my breath shortening, and my palms getting sweaty. The writing was extremely effective and well done. The story stayed compelling throughout.

There’s a lot going on in this book, and the author does an expert job of keeping everything on point. The research done in preparation for publication is unbelievably thorough. Yorkshire mining and happenings at the turn of the 19th/20th century were skillfully covered.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review the advanced copy of The House at Silvermoor (aka The House of Stone and Stars). It’s definitely one of my favorites, and I recommend it to all my reading friends the very minute it comes out February 6th. Well done, Ms. Rees. Well done.

This book is absolutely fantastic I adored it.I have read all Tracy's books and I think this maybe her best yet.I am a member of an online Irish book club which is quite large and have put a positive review of book.

A new century, the twentieth is upon Tommy and Josie and they have plans but they are seemingly stuck in their respective Yorkshire coal mining villages and it seems their destiny is mapped out for them, long before they were born.

Tommy knows he will go down the mine in the footsteps of his brothers, the men that marry his sisters and his fathers. He also knows that not everyone comes out the same as they were before they were underground. However Tommy wants to learn more about the world, he has a thirst for knowledge and that is not sated by this little village.

Josie, living in a neighbouring village in the shadow of a different mine to Tommy, she sees the effect that this rich mine owner is having on the locals and most of all her family.

Meeting one day Tommy and Josie form an unlikely friendship which is innocent and heartwarming  perhaps but their fascination with doing something other than mining and seeing another part of the world through the gates to the Heston Manor they wonder perhaps what life is like in there.

Heston Manor is all closed up, no one lives there since a tragedy some years previous and the owner, also the owner of the mine in the village where Josie lives is not someone to be trifled with - especially when you find yourself on their land.

But there is a secret to Heston Manor and both Tommy and Josie are drawn back there time and time again. What they discover can it change their lives or the lives of everyone in the village.

As fates take their own path, Tommy and Josie find themselves at another big house - Silvermoor. How can a place be so welcoming, opening and accepting when Heston Manor is everything but?

As all the strands of the story start to weave together it seems that Tommy and Josie are about to embark on a very different future to the one they thought they would have.

This book is packed full of wonderful passages and it's pace at times might seem slower than other novels but then I think that is intended as you start to understand the differences between the main characters, their respective villages, the mines, the 'big' houses and the classes.

The research that must have gone into this book was clearly there to see - the scenes in the mines at times had me gasping for breath. Claustrophobia set in as I was taken with Tommy under the ground, where you could not stand up straight, breathe properly and almost taste the coal. There are many more scenes I could choose from to describe how wonderful the writing is but that would just spoil the book for you.

A novel full of opposites, which in show the love and hate, the warmth and coldness, ironically the coal gives you warmth the work to get it so heartlessly cold. I am not sure what the message was from this book - but for me it swept me away and I hope it does you. 

For me this is the best book by Tracy Rees so far and is a must for any fans of historical fiction, think Catherine Cookson but on a much higher level.

When I was approved for this book by Quercus via NetGalley, I literally jumped: Tracy Rees is one of my favorite authors ever and I’ve been checking on Amazon on a daily basis for her next work, ready to preorder it as soon as it would have been available.
Then one day it appeared on NetGalley, I requested it, quite sure I never would have been lucky enough to get it, and then the next day, despite my pessimism, I was approved for The House At Silvermoor and I started it right away, putting on stand-by every other book I was reading, because hell, it was Tracy Rees’ new book!
The House At Silvermoor, Tracy Rees’ fifth historical novel to date, it scheduled to be published on February 6, 2020.
The two main characters are Tommy Green from Grindley and Josie Westgate from Arden, two young friends, both belonging to families of miners.
I fell in love with Tommy right at the beginning, when he was a little boy of twelve on his last day of school, eager to continue his schooling but dissuaded by all the adults, his father and his teacher in the first place, because his future is in the mines.
He’s kind and clever, sensitive and passionate, something that can be said of most of Tracy Rees’ characters, but Tommy managed to become one of my very favorites: he’s just too sweet, smart and lovely, and quite the dreamy kind as well.
No real wonder I adored him from the very first word!
Josie was just as adorable, headstrong and easy to root for, definitely one of the best of Tracy’s heroines, in the same league of my beloved Florence Grace.
I loved just about everything about this book: the setting in the 1890’s South Yorkshire, vibrant and beautifully described, the characters, both main and secondary (in my opinion always the strongest point of Tracy’s novels and deep and lovable characters are usually what I’m most looking forward to in my reads), the story and the way it developed and unfolded in the end, leaving me satisfied but also not really ready to let it go.
I miss Tommy and Josie, I miss them now as I missed them when I turned the last page in November.
I gladly would have read a good two-hundred more pages about Silvermoor and the journey to India, about dear little Walter, charming Cedric and Coralie, Martha and Connie, Manus and Dulcie, the Sedgewicks and the Barridges.
I never wanted it to finish and I tried to make it last, but I was home with the flu and I just couldn’t stop turning the pages, especially when I reached the second part of the book and I actually became a little bit tachycardic, as engrossed in Josie and Tommy’s adventures as I was.
Yes, I would have liked a little bit more of romance, literally just a few pages more would have been enough, because the love story was so beautiful and I thought it deserved more space, but it was so well crafted that in the end I felt almost convinced it was perfect just as it is.
I will definitely reread this book in the future and there will always be a place in my heart for these wonderful characters and for the many more I hope Tracy will write about in the years to come.
I recommend The House At Silvermoor to everyone, lovers of historical fiction as well as people simply looking for a great, deeply enjoyable read with characters that will steal your heart, and I’ll never stop recommending Tracy Rees as one of the very best historical fiction authors out there.
I want to thank both Quercus and NetGalley a thousand times for offering me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this amazing book, which I savored and loved so much that this rambling review isn’t even enough to make it justice.
I seriously can’t wait for whatever Tracy will write next!

Thank you to Net Galley and Quercus Books for the chance to read and review this book. This story revolves around mining families in Yorkshire at the turn of the century. The author does a great job of describing the horrors of the mines and what the workers went through. Tommy and Josie, whose families are all miners, meet when they are very young. Even though they were born into a miners life, they both want a better life. By a twist of fate, they get involved in the lives of the wealthy Sedgewicks who live in the House at Silvermoor. A promising future seems within their reach-this is their story. A good read, although slow at he beginning.

I really enjoyed this book! I thought the storyline was very interesting and the characters were well developed. Tommy and Josie were the main characters and I got to know their back stories as well as part of their future story. They both came from very humble backgrounds. The men in their families were coal miners. Even the young girls worked in some capacity for the mines. This is a dangerous, filthy, not very rewarding job. The main interest of the “lords” that own the coal mines, main interest is making money, lots of money. And they don’t care if their workers are hurt, sick or just lost a family member, they have to be at work. Tommy and Josie start out as friends from different “Burroughs.” They aren’t even supposed to talk to each other but they do and their friendship grows. I will definitely recommend this book to family and friends and will read another book from this author. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest opinion.