The Wildling Sisters
Eve Chase, 2017
Penguin Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399174131
Summary
An evocative novel in the vein of Kate Morton and Daphne Du Maurier, in which the thrill of first love clashes with the bonds of sisterhood, and all will be tested by the dark secret at the heart of Applecote Manor.
Four sisters. One summer. A lifetime of secrets.
When fifteen-year-old Margot and her three sisters arrive at Applecote Manor in June 1959, they expect a quiet English country summer. Instead, they find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their daughter, Audrey, five years before.
As the sisters become divided by new tensions when two handsome neighbors drop by, Margot finds herself drawn into the life Audrey left behind. When the summer takes a deadly turn, the girls must unite behind an unthinkable choice or find themselves torn apart forever.
Fifty years later, Jesse is desperate to move her family out of their London home, where signs of her widower husband’s previous wife are around every corner. Gorgeous Applecote Manor, nestled in the English countryside, seems the perfect solution.
But Jesse finds herself increasingly isolated in their new sprawling home, at odds with her fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, and haunted by the strange rumors that surround the manor.
Rich with the heat and angst of love both young and old, The Wildling Sisters is a gorgeous and breathtaking journey into the bonds that unite a family and the darkest secrets of the human heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Eve Chase is the pseudonym of a journalist who has worked for a variety of magazines in the UK. She lives in Oxford, England, writing in a small garden shed, which she and her husband built—a way, she says, to get out of the house without having to rent office space.
Chase admits she's always been fascinated by houses...
[E]specially these old English homes, these ancestral houses that get passed down from generation to generation. More than bricks, stone, and mortar are passed down—along with the responsibility and great cost of upkeep, the secrets and scandals of the manor are passed on to future generations.
Another idea that caught Chase's fancy revolved around a group of children at play in one of those ancestral houses, particularly one that was falling apart. Those children—and the house—became characters in her first novel, Black Rabbit Hall, published in 2016. Her second, also a story about an old house, is The Wildling Sisters, published in 2017. (Adapted from Huffington Post.)
Book Reviews
A page turning, suspenseful novel with richly created characters, a twisting plot, and a gothic setting. A delicious, shivery tale!
ShelfAwareness
Atmospheric.… [W]ill appeal to fans of similar English-house mysteries, like those by Daphne du Maurier.
BookPage
In this latest story from Chase, the female protagonists successfully try on the roles of sister, cousin, stepchild, daughter, and mother without being crushed by the weight of jealousy or fear.
Library Journal
A solid addition to the suspense subgenre of old-English-country-house-with-secrets tales.
Booklist
In Margot's first-person sections, the investigation leads to a shocking night of violence. A bewitching gothic tale of sisters and secrets.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Did you have a favorite Wilde sister? Why or why not? Did the sisters remind you of your own siblings?
2. How does the novel portray family? Is sisterhood different for the Wilde sisters from how it is for Romy and Bella? Is the sisterhood bond different from brotherhood or from the bond between siblings of different genders? If so, why?
3. The novel asks us to consider how far we would go to protect those we love. Were you surprised by the decisions the Wilde sisters make? Margot thinks they are "bonded by blood" (p. 2). Do you think the sisters committed a crime? If so, are they all equally guilty?
4. When talking about Sybil, Moll tells Margot, "Like I believe in the Good Lord, she believes in Audrey" (p. 194). What does Moll mean? Discuss the role of faith in the novel. How does Sybil’s faith in Audrey shape her character? What does Margot have faith in? What about Jessie?
5. Margot misses Audrey terribly at the beginning of the novel, but as the summer progresses, her relationship to Audrey seems to change as well. What does Audrey’s friendship mean to Margot? Why do you think Margot goes along with Sybil’s fantasy? How does pretending to be Audrey change Margot?
6. Margot thinks "Applecote Manor was summer" (p. 38). How does visiting Perry and Sybil change the Wilde girls? Was there somewhere you went as a child that offered you a similar sense of freedom? Do you remember a particular summer in which you think your life changed?
7. Jessie feels as though she was destined to live at Applecote, and Margot also feels a lifelong bond with the property. Have you ever been drawn to a place? Why do you think the house calls to Jessie the way it does? Is its pull different for Margot?
8. Jessie and Will believe that Applecote Manor will be a "gentler, more benign" place than London, a city that "forces girls to grow up too fast, strips them of their innocence" (p. 3). Do you agree with their decision to move the girls? How does the house prove their expectations wrong? Have you ever moved somewhere in hopes of achieving a different lifestyle?
9. As the summer goes on, Margot notices that Sybil and Perry "are really one system, redistributing their appetites, that the marriage that once looked so dead may actually be alive at the roots" (p. 202). How does the novel portray marriage? How does marriage for Sybil and Perry differ from marriage for Jessie and Will, or for Will and Mandy?
10. Were you surprised by Harry’s confession to Margot? Why or why not? How do you feel about the way Audrey’s story ends?
(Questions issued by publisher.)