Family fortunes
Sisters are at the centre of these two thrilling tales of love, loss and death
The Birdcage by Eve Chase (Michael Joseph, £14.99)
This atmospheric, suspenseful novel opens in 2019 as Lauren and her half-sisters, Kit and Flora, are summoned by their artist father Charlie to Rock Point, the house on the Cornish cliffs where they spent their childhood summers.
It is also the setting of their father’s most famous painting, Girls And Birdcage.
But 20 years before, on the day of a total solar eclipse, something terrible happened and none of them has set foot there since.
Although they share the same father, they each have different mothers. Lauren’s mother, Dixie, seemed to capture most of Charlie’s heart but the girl didn’t meet her father or her sisters until she was nine years old and started visiting Rock Point each summer.
Accustomed to home schooling, second-hand clothes and a hippy lifestyle, Lauren found Kit and Flora’s wealth and glamour intimidating and always felt like the outsider. She became closer to Gemma, the daughter of the woman who cleaned Rock Point.
But, in 2019, the sisters start receiving notes telling them they are being watched. Someone knows exactly what happened 20 years ago and won’t rest until justice is served.
This is a creepy, Gothic story with Rock Point taking centre stage as a house that holds secrets in its dark corners.
But Eve Chase’s characters are difficult to trust. As the three sisters take turns to tell their stories, we see them through one another’s eyes, their hidden depths slowly exposed in a captivating, beguiling read. Anne Cater
A Lady’s Guide To FortuneHunting
by Sophie Irwin (HarperCollins, £14.99)
Kitty and her four sisters are orphaned and destitute. Their father gambled away the family money and they have three months to pay his considerable debts before their home is repossessed.
But it’s 1818, so the only way for Kitty to secure her sisters’ future is to marry well. Very well. So she scrapes together the last £10 of the family money and with her sister, Cecily, travels to London to stay with their Aunt Dorothy. The plan is for their aunt to introduce the girls to society. But years ago, both the girls’ mother and Dorothy were courtesans – a disreputable family history that must be kept secret. In Hyde Park, the two sisters encounter an old acquaintance of Cecily’s, whose brother Archie just happens to be heir to a colossal fortune. Kitty wastes no time in winning him over. But his older brother, the Earl of Radcliffe, quickly establishes the truth about her family and threatens to publicly expose her unless she leaves Archie alone. The irrepressible Kitty strikes a deal. She’ll stop pursuing the smitten Archie, providing Radcliffe introduces her to aristocratic society, smoothing her way to finding another wealthy husband. The overt animosity between the pair means you can guess where the story is going but what makes it such an addictive read is wondering how they get there. As the story of a woman seizing control of her destiny, this is a distinctly modern novel and it’s peppered with distractingly 21st-century turns of phrase. But Sophie Irwin is a spirited, witty, writer and you’ll be cheering on Kitty from the sidelines in this fun slice of escapism. Charlotte Heathcote