In an age when authors like Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding were writing about grand country piles, Sterne brought readers directly into the rooms of the humble cottage, sat them by the fire and gave them a cracking good tale. But Strawberry Hill, in Twickenham, played a key role in English literature in helping to inspire what is considered the first gothic novel in English, The Castle of Otranto He drew on the designs of ancient churches and cathedrals, though the closest he came to worship was dressing up as a monk and play-acting around the house. His designs, too, were imitations of the real thing: Walpole claimed to have been driven to write the story of Otranto by a dream, but it was his own house that brought him the vision: The daughter of a vicar, Jane Austen grew up in a household of more modest means than many in her circle.
She attended parties, balls and other social gatherings at plenty of grand Hampshire country houses, writing to her sister Cassandra in The house was built in by the Knight family, who added two wings in the s before Edward inherited the property in It still has several wings and retains its elegant Italianate style.
The place was luxurious to Austen: North Lees Hall in the Peak District has the three floors she gives Thornfield, and came with a fittingly grim tale of a madwoman confined to the upper storey. A Jacobean manor house with a great hall dating to the 14th century, Norton Conyers had belonged to the Graham family since There are a number of similarities between Norton Conyers and Thornfield, the most tantalising being the stairway concealed behind the panelling of the first floor gallery, uncovered in , which would have allowed Mr Rochester to slip upstairs surreptitiously and deal with his raving wife.
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Few can read Howards End without longing for a golden afternoon in the garden of an English cottage. The house represents the England of the past, threatened by a modern world in motion where motorcars speed people through a landscape they have no time to appreciate.
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He was very clear about the inspiration for the house of his eponymous novel — Rooks Nest, his childhood home. After his father died of tuberculosis, when Forster was not quite two, his mother decided it would be healthier to move to the country. In she took the lease on Rooks Nest, near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, where they lived for the next 10 years.
The house had belonged to a family named Howard, who had farmed there for three centuries. Forster began memorialising it while still in his teens. For Woolf, Talland House represented a childhood idyll that would inspire her throughout her life. In her father, the eminent critic and biographer Leslie Stephen, had discovered Talland House in St Ives on one of his many walking expeditions. It was a three-storey detached house on a hill overlooking Porthminster Beach, with Godrevy lighthouse visible in the distance.
From July to September each year, Stephen installed his large family in it with an array of guests there. The children made a sport of looking out towards the railway station from the front garden, to spy their visitors arriving: Her half-sister Stella Duckworth died in and her brother Thoby in In To the Lighthouse , Woolf made a lengthy imaginative visit to the Talland House of her childhood, where the ghosts of her parents and siblings reappear.
The inspiration for Manderley was an obsession born of frustration. Du Maurier had coveted Menabilly House in Cornwall for decades before she was able to live there. And it was in the years of pining for it that she created the enigmatic mansion at the centre of Rebecca The physical description of the De Winter seat was, in fact, drawn from Milton Hall, near Peterborough, which Du Maurier had visited as a child during the first world war. The author first came across Menabilly during a family visit to the Cornish coastal town of Fowey in Menabilly had been owned by the Rashleigh family since , and was largely transformed in the early 18th century.
The three girls met in , at Silver Beach, Massachusetts. They formed a unique connection, these three unexpected cousins, all born during the same month and year.
Elyse and Isobel were full of questions for Lizzie, about her life and her dad. Not his name, who he was, or what had happened to him. This fact of her life would haunt her. Fast forward to November , in Los Angeles, where Lizzie and Isobel have been living in their adulthood, and to a phone call that will take the two of them, joined also by Elyse, back to Memphis and a crumbling, condemned house. The three story house that had been home to Lizzie, and which needed major repairs, rested on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River, and would take them out of their real lives during its restoration.
During the process, the house would come to symbolize all of their own failings. Struggling to overcome the challenges they will each discover truths about themselves and what they must do next. Isobel had starred in a TV show in childhood, and now seeks to find her place in the industry via a reality show during the restoration.
Elyse is trying to overcome her obsession with her old lover who is now going to marry her sister.
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And Lizzie, an athlete, is recovering from her third knee surgery, and wondering if she can ever play soccer again. Divided into three sections, the story focused on each young woman, and I found parts of it fascinating.
Within the walls of the old house were clues that could be sorted and assembled to point to some of the answers. Strange and somewhat disconnected characters filled out the canvas, all having something to do with the past, or with the restoration. While the story dragged for me at times, in the end, there was a satisfactory resolution for each of them, in a sense; however, the revelations felt a little like a balloon that has gone flat. A lot of furor over nothing much.
Three Junes by Julia Glass | theranchhands.com: Books
One person found this helpful. Three Story House is an interesting and well-written novel. In this book, three cousins try to fix up a house and each other. The characters here are connected with the family in Roots of the Olive Tree, and a character from that book even makes an appearance.
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The book is told mostly in third-person limited perspective in three sections, each one focusing on a cousin. Most of the book takes place during , a little under the shadow of the Mayan apocalypse theory; this time provides a nice backdrop to the cousins' life decisions. Santo uses her settings carefully, and she makes Memphis and Massachusetts more interesting and real to me, a Westerner. It's also obvious that she did a lot of research about renovating old homes.
The house sounds lovely; I wish I could just search for it and see pictures online!
Of course, the lists of actual spite houses are nearly as good. I appreciated seeing how each cousin dealt with failure and how they supported each other, although I agree that the characters despite developing a lot, are a little flat to start with. I was genuinely surprised by a couple of the plot twists. My copy has a section at the back with a historical note on spite houses, an extended bio of the author, reading questions, and a "short beginning"--what I guess is an alternate opening--that flashes back to the beginning of Spite House.
I wish there was more of an explanation of this beginning, but it has some nice background information that was not included in the novel. This book has sexual references and adult language. Well-written fantastic storyline, believable characters and dynamically woven to keep reader heavily involved to see "what's happening next". Women portrayed in book all had to deal with personal life-issues, however they continued to work as a family unit.
Recommend this book to ALL avid readers. It is narrated in third person. The ending was not predictable, and the story held my interest as it developed. Three cousins are the main characters, and they have a good relationship which develops as they grow up. It is set in several cities, and the story features different cousins in different chapters. I read loads of bad reviews about this book and almost didn't read it.
So many books have poor follow ups and while this had a different set of characters, I really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend both books if you are looking for a good set of books for a trip or a vacation or beach read.
Three Junes
No heavy lifting; not intense story lines. But a good story in both. I enjoyed the writing! Lizzie, Isobel, and Elyse all come together to renovate Lizzie's grandmother's house. Each of the cousins has a secret and they try to support one another as each secret comes to light. I learned a lot about spite houses from this book. I thought that the book was okay. That's why I bought it. But beyond the setting, the story of three young women trying to find their ways in life was three tales within a tale.
Loved all the twists and turns, it truly is a 3 story house!! See all 57 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway.
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