The Belladonna Maze by Sinéad Crowley

 

Synopsis:

An old house can hold many secrets. Hollowpark in the west of Ireland certainly does. At the heart of the gardens is an intricate maze, named after a deadly poison, Belladonna. If you know the way through, it's magical, a hiding place and playground like no other. If you don't, it's a place of fear and sinister riddles, where a young girl once went missing and was never seen again.

Grace comes to Hollowpark as a nanny for young Skye FitzMahon. Soon the mysterious past of Hollowpark has seduced her. Who is the woman she sometimes glimpses in an upstairs window? Or the apparition who keeps showing up unexpectedly, pleading, 'Find me'. And how can she fight her growing attraction to Skye's father?

Review:

I loved this novel.

Grace accepts to be the nanny of a nice little girl, she moves back to Ireland after a long time she has worked in England and Europe. When she arrives at Hollowpark Hall she is charmed by the big, historical mansion, but pretty soon she discovers there are more residents than she expected that want her help to solve a mysterious incident happened years before.

The strenghth of the story for me are the characters, they are well developped and realistically depicted, they have such a depth I could feel their emotions. They pulled on my heartstrings and they crept on my mind so much I couldn't forget them after I have closed my book.

My favourite is Deirdre, she was a smart and feisty woman and she was never scared. Her life was troubled but she never left her house.

The Belladonna Maze is a pretty long story, with a lot of fascinating descriptions of the places, a plethora of characters with their own stories to tell, and a good mystery to solve. I know it could be confusing but on the contrary even the smallest thing piqued my curiousity.

The author wonderfully tied the loose ends, with some twists and shocking revelations, she skillfully intertwined the double timeline, past and present stories and characters that inhabited Hollowpark Hall are essential for the pleasure of this read.

I wished a little more involvement of the ghosts because I love my paranormal mystery as much but this is the only criticism that I can do.

Release Date: 05.05.2022