The House Between Tides

The house that Hetty Deveraux has just inherited is no prize. Originally, Muirlan House was a Victorian manor, the home of up-and-coming painter Theo Blake. Now the house is falling to pieces. It will cost millions to restore, as Hetty planned. It’s a daunting project even before a local contractor discovers a decades’ old body buried in the foundations. Sarah Maine’s The House Between Tides is a slow unfolding of the house’s secrets and the secrets of the families who live on the island off the coast of Skye.

The House Between Tides is split into two parallel narratives. In 2010, Hetty ponders her options for the house and the estate. Her boyfriend and his colleagues are pushing her into restoring the house, turning it into a hotel, and using the grounds for golf and shooting parties. The people she meets on Skye and on Muirlan island are far from keen, because their recent ancestors were kicked off the island as part of the Clearances. The whole affair brings up lots of bad blood—literally when the body is discovered. The other narrative is narrated by Beatrice Blake in 1910 and 1911, when Muirlan House was in its heyday. Beatrice is the increasingly unhappy bride of Theo Blake. Theo was a promising artist before his talent seemed to evaporate. When they move back to the manor (built by his father after “clearing” most of the tenants), Theo becomes autocratic, reclusive, and controlling. He is not the man Beatrice married and he is getting worse.

In both halves of the book, Hetty and Beatrice are incomers who have stumbled into situations where everyone is close-mouthed and furious with each other. It takes them a long time to get the locals to open up about anything. They only have hints of grudges and crimes to go on for the most part. And, while we read about Hetty and Beatrice’s travails, there’s the question of the corpse the contractor found. Is it Beatrice? Is it someone from the island?

There were moments in The House Between Tides when I worried that the book was starting to get overstuffed, yet Maine never let her characters, plots, or mysteries get too far out of control. She also avoids the cardinal sin of trans-generational narratives by making Hetty and Beatrice both interesting and unique. Every time the book would shift in time, I would reluctantly part from whichever narrator had the reins but get almost immediately sucked in by the other narrator. Interestingly, neither of these women is an obvious heroine. For much of the book, they are run over roughshod by other characters. I found both women completely sympathetic, cheering for them when they discovered their inner grit.

On top of all this mystery, Maine also gives us a strong sense of the Hebrides. Hardly a chapter goes by without mention of the harsh weather, the delicate ecosystem, and the startling diversity of birds the nest on the islands. Throughout the book, characters do battle with each other to either save or transform (i.e. destroy) the islands. The characters who want to save the islands struggle against the changing times to preserve what’s left of Highland culture and the natural beauty of the place. The characters who want to develop (i.e. ruin) the islands want to turn the land into exclusive pleasure gardens. There’s a lot at stake in The House Between Tides, making for a very rewarding read.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 20 July 2016.

The Western Isles off mainland Scotland is the locale for Muirlan House a crumbling Gothic- like mansion inherited by Hetty Deveraux. Hetty is the last surviving relative of Emily Blake, sister of Theo Blake, chief resident, painter, bird cataloguer and mad man who drowned himself in 1912.

Hetty visits Muirlan House to assess the potential of turning the manse into a hotel. It will be a fresh start since she is reeling from the death of her parents and trying to escape a smothering, overprotective boyfriend. Island local James Cameron, a contractor has evaluated Muirlan House determining that the structure is unsound. Shockingly, he unearths a cracked skull, an empty eye socket, and a locket with the initials BJS secreted beneath the floorboards of the mansion's decaying conservatory. A crime of long standing must now be solved. Additionally, the stage is set for a battle between the locals who wish to conserve the refuge of wild beauty which is replete with croft houses, cottages and small harbors. Hetty is determined to restore Muirlan House and possibly embellish this new hotel with the addition of golf courses and wildlife shooting excursions.

Recounted in the alternating voices of Beatrice, Theo Blake's bride in 1910 and Hetty, the last Blake descendant in 2010, an unsettling story emerges. Hetty tries to evoke Theo's painting genius, Beatrice's isolation and the lives of the tenants on an island where the ebb and flow of tides dictate the lives of the dwellers. Hetty visits the landscapes defining Theo's paintings, reads old letters and views old photographs delving into her ancestry and that of the islanders. A history of love, passion and betrayal mimic the stark beauty and violent storms that occur on the remote island.

Sarah Maine has created an historical novel that merits comparison to Daphne du Maurier's atmospheric writing. Maine's descriptive style transports one to the unspoiled Outer Hebrides. An excellent debut novel.

Thank you Freight Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review The House Between Tides.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this title. My review is now live on my blog and on Goodreads. The full transcript is below:

The House Between Tides is a story that gripped me right from the first page. I enjoyed the shifting narrative between the past and the present, giving the reader glimpses of the truth but only revealing all at the end. I thought I had worked out the mystery; however, the final discovery still surprised me. The characters were engaging and believable, the prose highly readable, and the pacing just right. Recommended to fans of historical fiction who enjoy a little mystery in their tales and a slight Gothic twist. 4.5 stars

Harriet Deveraux inherits Muirlan House, the house between tides, which was once owned by Theo Blake, a distant relative who was a famous painter. Her plan to rebuild it into a hotel becomes compromised when a local engineer, with deep roots in the area, determines it is too deteriorated to be worth the rescue. Human skeletal remains are found under the floorboards in the house’s annex, further complicating her plans. As Harriet works through her choices of what to do with the property, she unwinds the stories of her ancestors revealing long-held secrets. Maine’s writing is simply beautiful. With clarity she tells a story of intertwined families and decades old loyalties. What makes this tale more remarkable, is that it is Maine’s first novel. Brava. I want to read more.

I like stories told in two different time frames and this excelled in this. A debut novel by Sarah Maine I am so looking forward to reading this author again and again.

Hetty is our present day main character. Having inherited property in the Outer Hebrides she is faced with a quandary. She is drawn so much to the island, the house and its inhabitants that she wants to do what is best for all. She is swept towards her decision to convert the house into a hotel by Giles her partner and his team behind him who have grandiose plans for golf courses, helipads and all the accouterments of a fancy hotel whereas she is veering towards something else. She also did not realise before she arrived on the island the antagonism that a venture of this nature would have to face, neither did she take into account her own strong feelings both about the house and its history.

Going back to 1910 we have the famous inhabitant of the house, a famous painter Theo Blake and the history of the Blakes (not always good and certainly not a good or kind landlord). A real feudal lord of the manor, Theo for all his brilliance as an artist was indifferent to the needs and wants of his tenants, most of them who lived in abject poverty sacrificing their livelihoods for his artistic needs and the needs for hunting and sports of his friends. The arrival of Beatrice his second wife was for a time a temporary lightening in his life and brought a fresh hope for the island itself but it dwindled in the face of overwhelming odds. Beatrice's subsequent love for Cameron, the factor's son was doomed from the beginning and you knew it would only lead to heartache.

How the two different time frames blended and came into a whole story was very descriptively handled and delicately balanced throughout the book. Characterization was splendid and the detailed description of the island, its birdlife and its natural beauty was beautifully told.

Hetty, the last of her bloodline inherits Muirlan House on Scotland's Outer Hebrides. She has plans to repair and turn it into a fashionable hotel with golf course. The house though would take a fortune to repair and when a young architect with ties to the island finds bones under one of the floors a mystery begins. Whose bones are these and how did they get there?

Dual storylines, time periods, from the present back to 1910 when a painter, Hetty's ancestor brings his new wife to Muirlan. This is a very atmospheric book, beautifully and written with an ethereal air. Wonderful descriptions of birds, landscape, the sea and the people, some who have lived in the crofts on the property for generations. Which is bone of dissension as many of these people were displaced during the building of the big house, which the locals consider a rich mans whimsy. Some great characters, tension, suspense, also a love triangle, wonderful paintings with a story of their own, has a little of everything but it all works awfully well together. This is one of those stories that totally encompass the reader, and I liked that most of the story was told by the perspective of 1910 and the people who inhabited that time. Just good old atmospheric story telling with a modern twist. Sometimes things in the past don't work out the way they should but bear fruit in the future. A good book to snooker down with during a thunderstorm.

ARC from Netgalley.