The Girl in the Photograph

Kirsty Ferry

Mar 2017 · Choc Lit Limited

About this ebook

A heartbroken woman retreats to the Yorkshire coast to explore turn-of-the-century art—and uncovers a ghostly secret—in this time-slip romantic mystery.
 
Staying alone in the shadow of an abandoned manor house along the desolate coast of Yorkshire would be madness to some, but art enthusiast Lissy de Luca can’t wait. After separating from her Italian photographer boyfriend, Stefano, Lissy could use a little isolation. Plus, she wants to study the Staithes Group—an artists’ commune active at the turn of the twentieth century.
 
Lissy is fascinated by Sea Scarr Hall, but her research is interrupted by strange events and peculiar sightings. A lonely figure patrols the cove at night, while the discovery of a hidden painting leads Lissy to a chilling realization about the home’s former occupants. And then there’s the photograph of a girl; so beautiful . . . and so familiar.
 
The occupants of Sea Scarr Hall may be gone, but they still have an important message for Lissy—and they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure she gets it.

Ratings and reviews

Determined to study an artist’s colony active in Yorkshire at the turn of the century and coaxed in by her brother, Lissy has rented a cottage near Sea Scarr Hall to live in while she researches. Her own relationships have ended, and she’s free to pursue the mysteries and regain her own footing from her own troubled past. Prone to quick, not always fully informed decisions, the atmospheric gloominess of the setting, and her own decision to isolate give this story a feel of the gothic: unpredictable weather, isolation, and the many secrets that Lissy is hiding or not dealing with in her own life all make her and her research intriguing. And then the weird happens. An old photograph of a woman who seems both familiar and otherworldly opens a series of questions that Lissy is determined to answer- and a mystery from 1905 that is starting to resemble her own broken relationship with Stefano – brought in to help by her brother. Here the story works on two separate timelines as the mystery of what happened to Lady Scarsdale and her house, Sea Scarr Hall come to light with a romance that seems to mirror Lissy and Stefano in many ways… Full of tension, questions, revelations and plenty of otherworldly moments, the secrets from the past are uncovered, allowing Lissy and Stefano to open up, share their own troubles and start to repair damage they’ve done to one another over the years. Transporting readers to Yorkshire with descriptions and insets that compare and contrast past with present and open possibilities for readers and Lissy alike, the mystery is more intriguing for the clues found and their interpretation and less in a ‘danger” sort of way, but no less intriguing to read or puzzle out. I didn’t find a great deal of difficulty not having read the earlier titles in the series, and am sure that fans of Ferry’s writing will be pleased to see another instalment. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

About the author

Kirsty Ferry is from the North East of England and lives there with her husband and son. She won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition and has had articles and short stories published in various magazines. Ferry’s work has also appears in several anthologies, incorporating such diverse themes as vampires, crime, angels, and more. She loves writing ghostly mysteries and interweaving fact and fiction. The research is almost as much fun as writing the book itself, and if she can add a wonderful setting and a dollop of history, that’s even better. Ferry’s day job involves sharing a building with an eclectic collection of ghosts, which can often prove rather interesting.