I had to set the novel aside for a day because I was having trouble with my vision. Meanwhile, we took a trip across state and while driving we listened to the audiobook Siracusa by Delia Ephron. I have been waiting for this chance to listen to it ever since I won the audiobook from First Look Book Club several years ago!
The novel is told in four voices so an audiobook was a terrific way to 'read' the book. Talia Balsam, Katie Finneran, Darren Goldstein, and John Slattery were the readers. They did a great job! Each character was distinct in personality.
Two couples take a joint vacation trip to Italy including Siracusa. New Yorkers Michael (a Pulitzer-winning playwright) and Lizzie (a magazine writer) and Taylor and Finn, Lizzie's ex-boyfriend who runs a restaurant in Portland, Maine, and their beautiful and strange daughter Snow.
The relationships are revealed to all be troubled. Taylor has boundary issues with her daughter and has frozen Finn out. Michael is a natural charmer (and womanizer) whose attention to Snow results in a crush. Lizzie loves Michael but feels he is married to his work.
Creepy! Addictive! And I had to laugh out loud as these characters reveal their pettiness and limited self-understanding and lack of understanding of their partners. The foreshadowing was quite strong and we had a hunch about the ending, which turned out to be on target and quite shocking.
But what a perfect book for an eight-hour car trip across back country roads and expressways in November. It was entertaining and had us discussing the characters and plot.
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| Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller |
On her deathbed, Frances Jellico believes she is being pressured by a Vicar to tell the truth of what really happened over a hot summer in 1969 when she was hired to evaluate the gardens of a crumbling 1740s c. English country house.
At thirty-nine. Frances had led a narrow life caring for her incapacitated, critical, and recently deceased mother. Grateful for the work, Frances arrived at the house to discover a man about her age and a younger women already staying there. Peter was hired to evaluate the house and furnishings. His companion Cara is beautiful and emotionally unstable. Frances is curious about their lives.
"I know of course right from wrong. My father, Luther Jellico, had instilled it into me before he left and then Mother had continued in her way: payment will always be due for any wrongdoing, don't lie or steal, don't talk to strange men, don't speak unless spoken to, don't look your mother in the eye, don't drink, don't smoke, don't expect anything from life." from Bitter Orange by Claire FullerThe house showed abuse and destruction from the soldiers stationed there during WWII, rooms empty and everything in disrepair. Strange things happen in the house, including the interactions between a protective Peter and volatile Cara.
Peter and Cara draw Frances into their carefree existence, setting aside their work for picnics with wine and smoking cigarettes and even a nude swim. Cara tells Frances her tragic story while Peter asks Frances to help him keep tabs on the mercurial Cara.
The local Vicar warns Frances to escape their influence.
It is too late, for these people are caught in a web of lies and fantasy that unravels with fatal consequences. And Frances accepts that "Payment will always be due."
Read an article by Fuller on Haunted Houses in fiction at
https://clairefuller.co.uk/2018/10/31/a-spine-tingling-reading-list-of-haunted-house-novels/
