Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Unfortunately there were file issues with my copy and I didn’t notice until too late and it had archived, won’t leave a bad review due to this as not the authors fault , just my bad

Imagine that years ago you went on holiday to an old house in the West Country and met someone who persuaded you to change your life.

That is what happens to Janey Lestrange. Having recently lost her father, Simon, Janey goes to stay with the Hunter family at their isolated mansion and is drawn into the ancient ritual called The Collecting. She is chosen as one of the Beloved Girls with the Hunters' eldest daughter, Catherine (Kitty).

The Hunters are a rather dysfunctional family. Sylvia, the mother, became the ward of Janey's father when she lost both her parents as a young girl. Janey is drawn into the Hunters' world, to the point where she literally wants to become one of them.

On Kitty and her twin brother Joss's 18th birthday, a terrible event takes place that will have far-reaching repercussions.

Years later, Catherine is a successful barrister and happily married to Davide. Events, however, are about to spiral out of control, forcing her to revisit the past she has been struggling to leave behind for nearly 30 years.

This is a multi-layered story, told within three different time periods. The main story takes place in 1989 and 2018, with a section set in 1959 that fills in some background around the Hunter and Lestrange parents.

Not everything is as it seems. I worked out what happened in terms of the Janey and Kitty dynamic but there are layers within layers. The ending was more understated than I expected, given what went before; however, the story - despite the slow start - is successful at drawing the reader in.

You will find some elements of Gothic in this story, but it is skilfully woven together by Harriet Evans. I particularly enjoyed the way nature was used as a metaphor.

There are also important themes around identity, mental health, and the role of women in society and family life.

I received a digital ARC of this book via Headline, in return for an honest appraisal.

Really enjoyed this book, was so pleased when I received it. Have read a few books by Harriet was not disappointed by this one. The characters were believable and really liked the story x

This is a family drama with some very unpleasant characters, especially the males in the story.
It is very atmospheric and also eerie in places. I felt that the storyline could be confusing in places.
The pacing was off with this book. It could have been 50-100 pages shorter.
If you are a fan of books set in eerie buildings and gothic settings, this could be the one.

The Beloved Girls is a slow paced saga set in several periods that contains several twists. Catherine Is a successful London barrister who goes missing just before her wedding anniversary and after recently losing a case. The book also follows the story of Janey and her time at The Vines, a country pile where tragedy strikes.
This book was well researched but the story unfolded too slowly to keep my interest even though it is well written with interesting characters.

It took quite some time to get going but was relatively interesting and worthwhile. Not great, not bad, just alright.

Look at the lovely cover and the description and you’d think it couldn’t possibly be any better but it was a terrible letdown. Sadly I think I’m going to have to bypass this author in future. Loved the earlier novels but find the latest ones not really to my taste. So much said but not much doing! It was slow, it was muddled and it didn’t help that I didn’t like the characters much. I started skimming which isn’t how I like to read books. Many people will no doubt love this tale and it will be a success.

The Beloved Girls is a slow burner; I had to persevere but did enjoy it overall. It's got twists, intrigue and a whole lot of heartbreak

I would struggle to be able to review this book due to issues with the file/download. The issues stopped the flow of the book. The issues are:
- Missing words in the middle of sentences
- Stop/start sentences on different lines
- No clear definition of chapters.

Not sure if it was a file/download issue but there were lots of gaps and stops/starts which really ruined the flow. I would love the chance to read a better version as the description of the book appeals to me

I was expecting a creepy gothic read and instead got a very long and very dull book about... well, I'm not really sure. Not something I enjoyed at any rate, and a book that I ended up skipping through just to see if the end got any better (it didn't).

Mrs Red, whose family had lived here for generations, liked to tell us bloodcurdling stories of yesteryear. ‘There were wolves in the woods, long ago, they’d eat the lepers, and the bones would be found, flush with flies, they’d have to burn them.’ (I sometimes tried to imagine hearing a sentence like that back in Greenford.)




I love Harriet Evans’ books - you can find enthusiastic posts about her The Wildflowers & The Garden of Lost and Found on the blog – because they are serious, interesting literary works, but at the same time they are entrancing and magical and funny and rattling good reads. Are we STILL not all convinced that those features can’t exist together? I’m probably preaching to the converted among my readers…

This is her latest, it came out last year, and it is well up to scratch. Harriet Evans says this: I'm always looking for stories that take me out of my world and into a totally different one that absorbs me 100%. That's the kind of book I want to write, too… [Beloved Girls is] a Gothic summer mystery about a strange house and family with secrets and a young girl who gets caught up in their games with tragic consequences.

A very good description.

There is a lot in this book: it’s a complex plot with elements set in 1959, 1989, and the present.

In the middle timeline, an outsider girl goes to stay with a talented wonderful family with an amazing house. There are folklore customs, a weird ceremony, there are bees and there are young people having their usual issues. Something goes badly wrong at the bee ceremony in 1989. But what happened then? And what is going on in the life of the modern-day Catherine, so successful, so happy, such a perfect life? Ah well…

The posh bohemian family have a big moment each year when the whole village gets involved in the Collecting, with the bees, and the mysterious stone chapel in the woods.

It’s a long hot summer: ‘We existed outside, on the terrace, by the pool, scrambling along the steep scented paths down to the beach, into the woods. And the chapel and the bees.’







Everything is changing, and it’s obvious something explosive is going to go wrong….

Well they are all tropes we’ve seen before, you may be thinking – though nothing wrong with that anyway, I never get tired of that. But the POV of the book cleverly changes at various points, keeping the reader guessing and somewhat disorientated. The book does strange and interesting things with its themes, and it is a sad and haunting story, with an excellent feminist line running through it. It is not at all sentimental, and takes a pretty cold view of many aspects of family life.


The summer of 1989 is nicely described – the clothes, the music, the interests of the young women. The casual background relationships among the young people are cringe-makingly recognizable, and there is a very well-done sex scene. And then there are other things going on as well.
The book features a version of that very strange traditional song Green Grow the Rushes-O, tailored to the family and the plot. But it is already a weird song because nobody really knows what it’s about, there is no certainty about cracking the code, though its obviously symbolic and meaningful.

Complex, beguiling and mesmerizing, The Beloved Girls is the seductive new novel from much-loved storyteller Harriet Evans.

Catherine is a successful barrister who seems to have the world at her feet, so everyone is shocked when on the eve of her anniversary she vanishes off the face of the earth. What was behind Catherine’s disappearance? What compelled a woman who seemed to have it all to turn her back on her life and vanish? Was it because she saw a face from the past she never thought she would see ever again? Was it her twisted imagination playing tricks on her yet again? Or was it something even more sinister and terrifying?

The answer to the mystery behind Catherine’s disappearance lies in the past – specifically to the summer of 1989 and to a mysterious West Country House called Vanes. A young girl called Jane Lestrange had come to spend the summer with the Hunter family and her entire world had changed beyond all recognition. A devastating tragedy occurred and with an ancient family ritual taking centre stage during the hot summer months, Jane finds herself falling under the clan’s hypnotic spell. As a close bond is formed between her and eldest daughter Kitty, little does Jane realise that that the repercussions of that long-ago summer will be felt decades later in the most alarming and unexpected of ways.

Still haunted by the past, Vanes will continue to exert its malevolent hold over the Beloved Girls. Can they ever unshackle themselves from the secrets of that house? Or will they continue to be held prisoner by old ghosts that refuse to be vanquished?

Harriet Evans’ The Beloved Girls is epic storytelling at its finest. An enchanting, involving and breath-taking tale about friendship, secrets, love and loyalty, The Beloved Girls is a beautifully layered and wonderfully atmospheric page-turner sprinkled with Gothic chills, heart-racing twists and turns and powerful emotional intensity.

The Go-Between meets Rebecca in Harriet Evans’s haunting, absorbing and intricately woven new novel, The Beloved Girls.

Evans always writes such poetic, sweeping stories and this one is right up there as one of my favourite of hers. The Beloved Girls is an atmospheric story about families and secrets wrapped up in an old house.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review

This was a very different and unusual story with some twists and turns. The way the story developed throughout different time sections was really interesting and added to the depth. I found the story itself quite limited in depth however and the elements of child abuse upsetting. It was a good read but not one I would rush back to or recommend without careful consideration.

I love Harriet’s books so much and I really enjoyed The Beloved Girls. I thought it was a compelling story of friendship, family and secrets. I was totally absorbed in the story. The writing was dark and atmospheric- big fan of these vibes!!! The storyline had many twists in which was what sucked me in. The characterisation was spot on! I found it emotional and I took my time reading it as I’m such a fan. Highly recommend

I love Harriet Evans' books but I wasn't a fan of this one. It felt very very long and it was sluggish in places. It's almost unrelentingly grim and the characters are truly awful at times.

This was an atmospheric family drama which made for an unsettling read.
Catherine a successful barrister goes missing and she has not been open about her past, she left home at 18 never to return.
The story is told from various timelines which I always like as the reader is able to build up the story and get to know the characters very well. The setting of a country/Manor House gave me all the feeling of a gothic, tense read and the yearly ritual also gave a sense of foreboding.
The unreliable narrators gave me lots of questions and this was a read I enjoyed.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an gifted copy in return for an honest review.
Worth a read.

A hive of secrets ★★☆☆☆

Catherine is haunted by the summer of 1989 when a pagan ceremony ended in death and she left her old life behind forever. Moving between that critical summer, present day, and the fifties, the history and secrets of the Lestrange and Hunter families are gradually brought to light.

The honey collecting ceremony, the eccentric Hunter family with their obsession with the bees and a character struggling between illusion and reality makes for a story steeped in strangeness which can be hard to follow at times. The Lolita-esque subplots and the simultaneous sexualisation and dismissal of women is also uncomfortable and disturbing.

A slow and twisting story of dark family secrets and mysterious rituals.

In the summer of 1989, a girl named Jane Lestrange has come to stay at Vanes, a mysterious Gothic manor in the West Country. Vanes is home to the Hunter family, including twins Joss and Kitty and their younger sister Merry. The Hunters lead the annual ceremony that celebrates the ancient connection between the villagers and the bees. This year, Jane and Kitty will play the part of The Beloved Girls, a starring role in the strange ritual. Years later, successful barrister Catherine vanishes from her idyllic family life and career in London. Was this triggered by a ghostly vision or a troubled mind that has finally cracked? This bewitching novel charts an epic family saga, populated by some fascinating characters. It’s a heartbreaking story about resilience and memory with plenty of twists and dark witchy vibes, which is perfect for autumn. Beware of trigger warnings for sexual abuse and suicide before diving into this utterly beguiling book.