My Rating
★★★★★ - You have bewitched me, body and soul. (More Info)
I said my story had many beginnings, and the day the camera arrived was one of them. After all, without the camera, there wouldn’t have been any photographs. Without the camera, I wouldn’t have a story to tell…
1917…. In a world torn apart by war, Frances Griffiths arrives in Cottingley, England where her cousin, Elsie Wright, becomes her friend and playmate. But Frances soon discovers other, secret friends … When the cousins claim to have photographed real fairies at the bottom of the garden their parents are sceptical, but the photos come to the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who declares them a marvel and entirely authentic. The ‘Cottingley Fairies’ – and the girls – become a national sensation. Afraid to tell the truth, Frances and Elsie will keep their secret for decades …
Present day . . . When Olivia Kavanagh inherits her grandfather’s bookshop in a small Irish harbor town, she discovers far more than dusty old books. An old manuscript tells an enchanting story of a nation gripped by fairy fever, and a hauntingly familiar photograph stirs painful memories of the past. Olivia begins to understand how Frances’s story intertwines with hers, connecting past to present . . . often blurring what is real, and what is imagined, along the way. While little girls might easily believe in fairies, can Olivia believe in herself?
Read the story behind The Cottingley Secret here.
(From the author's website)
My Thoughts
A time-slip story set in Ireland and England. A family secret. A darling family and a woman who finally decides to make her own path...be her own mapmaker. Something Old Bookshop really makes me want to open my own bookshop now lol! I love the history, the stories, the magic that infuses the pages of this book.
I listened to this story and the narrators (like the rest of Hazel Gaynor's narrators) are simply incredible. They really bring the story to life and make it feel like I could turn around and see real-life fairies.
Gaynor's words and storytelling captivates and entrances to the point of obsession. So much so, that I have already pre-ordered her next release. I can't believe that I haven't read her books before...And thanks to my new book club, I now have a new favorite author.
I listened to The Cottingley Secret through my local library. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.
About the Author
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| Photo by Deasy Photographic |
Hazel Gaynor is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of A Memory of Violets and The Girl Who Came Home, for which she received the 2015 RNA Historical Novel of the Year award. Her third novel, The Girl from the Savoy, was an Irish Times and Globe & Mail Canada bestseller, and was shortlisted for the BGE Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. In 2017, she has published The Cottingley Secret and Last Christmas in Paris. Hazel was selected by US Library Journal as one of 'Ten Big Breakout Authors' for 2015 and her work has been translated into several languages. Hazel lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.
