Fiercombe Manor: A Novel

by Kate Riordan

Overview

Kate Riordan’s Firecombe Manor is a dual-narrative tale about two women from different eras united by the secrets hidden within an English mansion.
 
In 1933, naive twenty-two-year-old Alice—pregnant and unmarried—is in disgrace. Her mother banishes her from London to secluded Fiercombe Manor in rural Gloucestershire, where she can hide under the watchful eye of her mother’s old friend, the housekeeper Mrs. Jelphs. The manor’s owners, the Stantons, live abroad, and with her cover story of a recently-deceased husband, Alice can have her baby there before giving it up for adoption and returning home. But as she endures the long, hot summer at Fiercombe awaiting the baby’s birth, Alice senses that something is amiss with the house and its absentee owners.
 
Thirty years earlier, pregnant Lady Elizabeth Stanton desperately hopes for the heir her husband desires. Tormented by the memory of what happened after the birth of her first child, a daughter, she grows increasingly terrified that history will repeat itself, with devastating consequences.
 
After meeting Tom, the young scion of the Stanton family, Alice becomes determined to uncover the clan’s tragic past and exorcise the ghosts of this idyllic, isolated house. But nothing can prepare Alice for what she uncovers. Soon it is her turn to fear: can she escape the tragic fate of the other women who have lived in the Fiercombe valley . . .
 
“Borrowing from gothic literature staples Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Riordan creates a visceral and lively narrative that seizes the reader’s attention.” —Library Journal (Starred Review)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062332967
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	419
Sales rank:	314,094
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kate Riordan is a British writer and journalist who worked for the Guardian and Time Out London. She is also the author of Birdcage Walk and is already at work on her third novel. Born in London, she now lives in the Gloucestershire countryside.

Editorial Reviews

12/15/2014
Tragic events, buried secrets, and a mysterious manor tether the lives of two English women, separated by 30 years, in Riordan’s (Birdcage Walk) Gothic-style dual narrative. Beginning in 1932, narrator Alice Eveleigh, a naive 22-year-old in London, becomes romantically involved with a married man. When she becomes pregnant, Alice’s shamed parents concoct a story about a dead husband and whisk her out of the city to an old friend, a buttoned-up housekeeper at the Stanton family’s Fiercombe Manor in the Cotswolds. The novel then backs up to 1898, with the other narrator, Lady Elizabeth Stanton, expecting a second child; she hopes it is a healthy boy, an heir for her demanding husband. In 1932, Alice spends her own pregnancy exploring Fiercombe, reading Elizabeth’s hidden diary, discovering haunting old photos and discarded toys, and experiencing strange phenomena—screeching owls and “murmuring” wind. She befriends the estate’s heir, Tom Stanton, and discovers that she and Elizabeth share a bond: “My life apparently turning into a morbid echo of Elizabeth’s.” When a shocking secret is revealed, Alice fears for herself and her baby. Riordan’s bewitching blend of tainted aristocrats, secretive domestics, and manipulative quacks amid a crumbling English country home is atmospheric and entertaining. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Riordan’s bewitching blend of tainted aristocrats, secretive domestics, and manipulative quacks amid a crumbling English country home is atmospheric and entertaining.” — Publishers Weekly

“Mrs. Jelphs has a touch of Mrs. Danvers about her, and the old driver, Ruck, is truly creepy. This is a good match with fans of…Diane Setterfield and Kate Morton.” — Booklist

“A prickly story full of tension.” — Sunday Express (London)

“A well executed, brooding, creepy atmosphere.” — Sunday Mirror (London)

“Full of slow-burning tension.” — Essentials

“Borrowing from gothic literature staples Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Riordan creates a visceral and lively narrative that seizes the reader’s attention. Readers...will applaud and welcome this addition.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“A sweeping saga of secrets and ghosts.” — Good Housekeeping, UK

From the Publisher

A sweeping saga of secrets and ghosts.

Good Housekeeping

A well executed, brooding, creepy atmosphere.

Sunday Mirror (London)

A prickly story full of tension.

Sunday Express (London)

Mrs. Jelphs has a touch of Mrs. Danvers about her, and the old driver, Ruck, is truly creepy. This is a good match with fans of…Diane Setterfield and Kate Morton.

Booklist

Full of slow-burning tension.

Essentials

Mrs. Jelphs has a touch of Mrs. Danvers about her, and the old driver, Ruck, is truly creepy. This is a good match with fans of…Diane Setterfield and Kate Morton.

Booklist

★ 12/01/2014
In her pregnant and unmarried state, Alice is considered a disgrace and burden on her family, so she leaves bustling London for the lonely, quiet estate of Fiercombe Manor. It is 1933, and on her own, Alice is left to perform light housework and walk through the wild and (mostly) abandoned gardens. However, there is an undercurrent within the house, an echo of the past that Alice can feel pressing on her, begging to be revealed. She finds diaries from the former lady of the house, Elizabeth Stanton, which skirt around tragedies from 30 years ago and reveal that Elizabeth was also pregnant. Alice feels a kinship despite the foreboding that history may try to repeat itself. VERDICT Heavily borrowing from gothic literature staples Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Riordan (Birdcage Walk) creates a visceral and lively narrative that seizes the reader's attention. Readers of the Victorian/gothic genre who have also enjoyed Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale and other contemporary gothics will applaud and welcome this addition.—Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL

Library Journal

2015-01-08
A Gothic English manor in a remote valley provides the backdrop to this tale of two pregnant women living 40 years apart.Alice Eveleigh—a well-educated but romantically naïve office worker in 1933 London—has found herself pregnant by a married man. Her mother worries only about what the neighbors will think, so she shuttles Alice off to Fiercombe Manor, the ancient seat of the noble Stanton family, where her mother's childhood friend, Mrs. Jelphs, is the housekeeper. There, Alice can have her baby, and give it up for adoption, without bothering anyone—or so her mother thinks. Installed at Fiercombe for the duration of an unusually hot summer, Alice grows increasingly curious about the former residents of the house, especially Elizabeth, the beautiful one-time Lady Stanton, and her last pregnancy. What happened to Elizabeth, her daughter, Isabel, and the child she carried, and why was Stanton House, the monstrous modern mansion built to replace Fiercombe, torn down after standing only 10 years? Why does Tom Stanton, the current heir to the estate, feel responsible for his brother's death 20 years before, and will his guilt affect his budding romance with Alice? "The real ghosts are the ones that take up residence in your mind," Tom says, which means that everyone at Fiercombe is haunted by something. The stern Mrs. Jelphs can't keep her secrets forever, though, and little by little, Alice uncovers the fate of Elizabeth and her daughter, a fate that Alice worries she and her own child may share. Despite reaching toward tales like Rebecca and the novels of Sarah Waters, Riordan offers a leaden version of an old story burdened by awkward flashbacks, flat characters, exposition-heavy dialogue, and a drawn-out, uninspired mystery at its heart.For true gothic thrills and chills, look elsewhere.

Kirkus Reviews