The Shadow on the Bridge by Clare Marchant. Boldwood Books, 2025.

I’ve already “shelved” this wonderful book with my Susanna Kearsley collection, and other favourites by Nicola Cornick, Barbara Erskine, Elaine Fox, Elizabeth Goudge, Kate Morton, Rosamond Pilcher, and Mary Stewart where fascinating homes are almost as important as the characters who live in them.

This book tells two stories, that of poet Anne (1569-1572) and illustrator Sarah (2004 & 2025), each of whom as children suffered a very similar family tragedy at Barnhamcross Hall, a converted convent in Norfolk. When Anne is forced to marry at twelve, she is moved to London’s Howard Hall, another dissolved religious establishment similar to Barnhamcross Hall with “shadowy, monastic passages [that lead] further and further into the distance”. Sarah returns when, after her twenty-one-year absence, her godmother Cordelia begs her to come back to, among other things, try to solve a family maxim, a riddle handed down to house owners unsolved for nearly five hundred years.

This book is outstandingly well written with respect to plot, character development and consistency, and writing style.
I did miss reading historical notes at the end of this book, though it was quick work to find most of the characters I had not heard of before on Wikipedia.

This is the first book I’ve read by Clare Marchant, a bestselling author of dual timeline historical fiction. I will be looking for others right away.
Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Shadow on the Bridge free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. #TheShadowontheBridge #NetGalley