Customer Reviews

The Stranger House

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a marvelous and beautifully realized work of fiction. As someone who enjoys mysteries, as well as historical fiction and gothic novels of suspense, I was quite taken with this book. Intricately plotted, the book is clever in its premise. Two disparate human beings, a highly independent, red-headed slip of a woman, Samantha Flood, Australian by birth, and a serious, fervently religious Spaniard, Miguel Madero, who is half-English, find themselves thrust together, as each explores the tiny, remote Cumbrian village of Illthwaite in England, looking for answers to their individual quests. Both are in Illthwaite to get information relative to that which each is seeking. Both are staying in the local inn, called The Stranger House.

Samantha is a brilliant but brash mathematician in her early twenties. Fondly known as Sam to her friends, she is interested in tracing her familial roots. She has recently discovered that her paternal grandmother was from this part of the world, having been a part of a huge number of children migrants that had been unceremoniously shipped from England to other parts of its Empire, including Australia. Samantha is interested in finding out more about her paternal grandmother and the mystery surrounding her.

Miguel, or Mig, as he is known to his family and friends, is the scion of a well-known house of vintners in Spain and is in his late twenties. He is a former seminarian who has suffered from manifestations of what he believes to be stigmata. He also, on occasion, sees ghostly manifestations or visions. Recovering from a serious alpine accident that nearly killed him, he is now in Illthwaite ostensibly to do research for his thesis on the experience of English Catholics during the Reformation. He is, however, actually in Illthwaite to find out more about an ancestor of his who mysteriously disappeared there centuries ago during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

In Illthwaite, Both Sam and Mig find themselves up against obstacles placed in their way. It seems that its residents are not totally forthcoming or are reluctant to part with information relative to their respective quests. What they each individually discover is that things are not always as they seem in Illthwaite. Moreover, their divergent interests are more intertwined than they could ever have imagined. They will discover that they have more in common than they realized, having come full circle in a cosmic design not of their making.

This book has well-drawn characters that come alive under the author's expert hand. The plot is unusual, as well as complex, containing many layers that the discerning reader will enjoy exploring. Well-written, as well as intricately plotted, this book crosses a number of genres. With its supernatural portents, historical underpinnings, underlying mystery, as well as its gothic type suspense and sensibilities, infused with just a dollop of romance, this book will appeal to those readers who favor these genres. In particular, I found the parts of the book that transcended into historical fiction to be the most compelling. This is not a book for everyone, but to those for whom its themes have inherent appeal, it is a book to be relished.

This book came as a considerable surprise. My luck in getting offers of interesting review copies is nearly nil. That last thing I expected was to receive a book that was not only entertaining, but which pushed against the limits of its genre to become a genuinely original story.

The initial buildup of the story seems quite traditional. Samantha Flood is a young Australian woman who has come to England to study math at Cambridge. The story of her family's origins are bound up in the tragic tale of a huge number of orphaned and abandoned children who were shipped off from England to Australia. Twice abandoned, many were ruthlessly mistreated. Now she has come to the village of Illthwaite to discover the truth.

Miguel Madero, scion of a wealthy Spanish family, has an equivalent mystery, but one four hundred years older. A father and son were drawn into the conflict between England and Spain and both were lost. Only by a miracle was the family preserved. Now Mig driven by belief and curiosity is trying to add new light to England's old persecution of Catholic priests. The trail leads to the Woollass family, the lords of Illthwaite's manor.

What with an immediate attempt on Sam's life and Mig's tendency towards visions and stigmata, the reader will almost immediately assume that this is going to by a typical spooky suspense thriller. And only slowly does Reginald Hill reveal that this is a much deeper tale of guilt and retribution. The spookiness and suspense carry us along nicely, luring us into a finely written human tapestry, where characters are more than first appearances. Under the twin story arcs of Mig's and Sam's heritages lie the individual stories behind each if Illthwaite's denizens.

What makes the novel work is Reginald Hill's ability to tell a story that has countless echoes of the past in completely modern terms. With one or three notable exceptions, the characters step outside their archetypical forms, interacting comfortably, either endearing or repelling the reader, as the moment requires. The apparent 'naturalness' of the telling is really a study in careful control. The Stranger Houseis a compelling read that is worth pursuing.

Reginald Hill's "The Stranger House" is an intricate story about two people who meet in the village of Illthwaite, in Cumbria, England. Samantha Flood is a spunky Aussie in her early twenties. She's a brash and curious mathematician who plans to continue her graduate studies in Cambridge. However, Sam takes some time off to do some digging into her family's background. Miguel Ramos Elkington Madero, known as Mig, is five years older than Sam, and he is very different from her. While Sam is a pragmatist who has no use for religion, Mig is a Catholic who once studied for the priesthood. Over the years, he has had strange visions and has experienced unexplained pain and bleeding from his palms. Mig has come to Illthwaite from Spain in order to explore the experiences of English Catholics during the Reformation. Do Sam and Mig encounter one another in this tiny village by chance, or has fate brought these two people together for some special purpose?

"The Stranger House" moves back and forth in time as Hill examines the history of Illthwaite going back several generations. Most of the town's inhabitants seem friendly enough on the surface, but they become closed-mouthed and evasive when discussing the past. Eventually, the tenacious Mig and Sam uncover some shocking information that sheds an entirely new light on their ancestry. They find out that although Illthwaite seems to be a quiet and nondescript place, some of its citizens may have committed and covered up heinous crimes.

Hill shines in his vivid depiction of the countryside and the eccentric English villagers. All of his characters are original and outstandingly realized. Sam Flood is bright, inquisitive, irrepressible, and nobody's fool. Although she looks younger than her years, she is far from naive. Sam senses that the town is reluctant to give up its secrets, but she refuses to back down until she gets some answers. Mig is a deeply spiritual individual whose carnal desires overtake him at odd moments. He is a scholar with an appreciation for history, and he is shocked when he finds out that his quest coincides with Sam's.

This is a deliberately paced and subtle psychological thriller about how and why the inhabitants of Illthwaite are so reluctant to tell Sam and Mig the truth. The book has a "Rashomon" feel to it, since different narrators relate key events from their own particular perspectives. In addition, Hill makes ample use of flashbacks and foreshadowing to drop hints and clues, but the dizzying swirl of events begins to make sense only at the end of this lengthy novel. For the patient and careful reader who loves a literary challenge, "The Stranger House" provides rich rewards. It is a dryly humorous, suspenseful, engrossing, and ambitious tale of lust, greed, religious persecution, and murder.

It is unbelievable to me there is one bad review here. It has been years since I could NOT put down a book until I was finished, reading well into the early morning. The story seemed at first to drag but once it took off I was engrossed. I was leery of a non-Dalziel/Pascoe mystery but am so glad R.H. decided on a vacation of his regular series. The ending was unreal, the plot wrapped in an eloquent bow. I strongly recommend this book as well as anything else by this author.

Two young people from different sides of the world come together in the village Of Illthwaite in the Cumbrian region of England, both descendants of villagers of previous generations, whose tumultuous lives affected the entire population of the village. Sam Flood is an Australian mathematician who has decided to search out her roots, after discovering that her paternal grandmother came to Australia as a result of the now infamous relocation scheme for children from orphanages and those who had been abandoned by their parents. Sam locates a local woman who had been a fellow traveler on the ship and who tells a horrified Sam about the barbaric treatment given by church authorities and social service organisations, to those helpless children... a time of great shame in Australian history! Miguel Madero, known as Mig, is the son of a noble Spanish house and is recovering from a bad fall, taken when he was rock climbing, during a break from his studies at a seminary. Unsure whether or not to return to the seminary as he is reconsidering his vocation to the priesthood, Mig also travels to Illthwaite to do some research for his doctorate in the history of religious persecution in 16th century England, with particular interest in an ancestor with the same name. The locals close ranks when Sam and Mig, separately and together, question them about several deaths and a suicide which could affect their research, and Reginald Hill takes this opportunity to introduce lots of fascinating characters, all worthy of a place in an English murder/mystery novel. I found this to be a great read with overtones of murder,historical themes and complex characters crowding the pages, and just enough sex to keep it interesting.

Overall, I liked this book. It had a lot going for it in terms of plot, characters, and unexpected developments. There is a spooky isolated village in the hillside feel to the town, and a nice interplay between ancient, past, and present events. I did think the book would have gone from good to great if the writing had been better. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, and I did like the book. There were just certain things that could have been touched up by an editor - the overuse of exlamation points and random jokes that were out of place in the narrative, for one thing. Also, some of the situations seemed almost forced - Sam snapping at Mig every second to create 'friction' between them, except that some of her angry remarks make no sense in the context of what is happening. Overall I recommend as light reading.

Multiple award-winning author Reginald Hill, (the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award as well as the Golden Dagger for his Dalziel-Pascoe series), is widely read and admired in both the UK and US. He lives with his wife in Cumbria, England, the setting for "The Stranger House," and while he goes out of his way to assure readers that this tale and the characters who people it are figments of his imagination, he also writes, "...just because I have made it all up doesn't mean it isn't true."

This is a historical mystery, a novel of amateur detection, a ghost story and gothic romance with bits of Norse mythology and religion thrown in for good measure, along with some superb character studies and fine commentaries of village life in England's Lake District. A beautifully written novel, "The Stranger House" is permeated by an eerie ambiance filled with shadowy touches of the supernatural.

Two strangers with widely disparate backgrounds are brought together in the small Cumbrian village of Illthwaite with the common goal of seeking information about their ancestors who both had ties to this town. Samantha Flood, an Aussie from Sydney, is about to began her graduate studies in mathematics at Cambridge. She has planned to take the time before school begins to uncover the mystery surrounding her grandmother who died when Sam's father was born. Samantha, an energetic up front young woman who says what she feels to the point of occasional abrasiveness, is haunted by her grandmother's history. As a timid twelve year-old girl, she was shipped off to Australia with other boatloads of orphans as part of a horrific child-relocation program sponsored by the Catholic Church. When it was discovered she was pregnant, she was tormented by the nuns until she finally died in childbirth. The only identifying information her grandmother had on her when she got off the ship was a piece of paper on which was written the word "Illthwaite" and the name Sam Flood. Since everyone assumed the girl's name was Sam Flood, that's what she was called and that is who our 21st century heroine is named for.

Miguel Ramos Elkington Madero, called Mig by friends, has also come to Illthwaite for information about the past. The young man has experienced a number of supernatural episodes during his lifetime, including stigmata, where his hands and feet bleed and cause him intolerable pain. He has also sighted a ghost-like apparition on more than a few occasions. Mig initially took these incidents to be a sign of a calling to the priesthood, but he has since learned otherwise and consequently left the seminary. He journeys to the small village as a historian interested in the persecution of Catholics, especially Catholic priests, during the period Henry and Elizabeth Tudor reigned. He also wants to find the link between an ancestor, his namesake, who sailed with the Spanish Armada and was washed up on the Yorkshire coast and a Catholic Illthwaite family, the Woollasses. The family's Elizabethan ancestors were recusants - Catholics who practiced their religion during an era when doing so meant certain persecution, torture and frequently, death.

The somewhat sinister villagers obviously know much more than they reveal to the two young intruders, who both stay at the local pub/guest house called "The Stranger House." Mr. Hill takes us on a mysterious, often spooky journey spanning several centuries and introduces us to various narrators who tell us their individual tales which eventually all converge and have a tremendous impact on the present. The historical background material and the Norse mythology are fascinating and alone make reading this novel worthwhile. Reginald Hill is a consummate storyteller which is the icing on the cake. "The Stranger House" is a must read for anyone who loves a tad of ambiance and much originality along with their mystery, thrills and suspense. ENJOY!!
JANA

The remote village of Illthwaite, Cumbria is rife with secrets, lies and mysteries, the inhabitants, an eclectic and ancient mixture of the Protestant, the Catholic, the Norse, and the Anglo-Saxon. It isn't until Miguel Madero, a trainee priest from Spain, and Sam Flood a perky young Australian mathematician arrive in the village, that the locals are forced to face some unattractive skeletons of the past.

Considered intruders by most, these two very different people are forced to negotiate their way through a maze of falsehood and deceit as they try to track down their illusive and troubled family histories. The half-English Miguel Madero, who is plagued by an unexplained stigmata - on a few occasions he's actually bled and there's real piercing unbearable pain - suffers ghostly visitations as he gets closer to the local pub, The Stranger House.

Miguel can trace his family back to Simeon Wollass, an ancestor who sailed with the Spanish Armada and was washed up on the Yorkshire coast. And while Miguel reads the terrible story written in the cramped hand of Simeon, the fevered ramblings of his distant ancestor and namesake, the young Sam Flood, follows what she thinks is false trail laid by coincidence that she suspects may be meaningless.

Sam is from rural Victoria and is investigating the history of her grandmother, who was callously dispatched to the colonies in 1960 as part of the "child migrant" scheme, designed to give the orphan a new start, but in effect condemned her to brutal semi-slavery in the care of a group of puritanical nuns.

When Sam finds out that her father was adopted and that his mother may have come from the Illthwaite area, she is determined to uncover the shameful complicity of why she was shipped off to Australia. Together, Sam and Miguel combine their various talents to find the truth of their families, and as they learn more their enquiries lead them to chase after buried treasure, get trapped in priest's holes, and discover the truth behind the terrible human sacrifices that took place around the village.

Sam initially has as sense of the community coming close together, a sense of relief that the problem of her grandmother will be solved. But she soon suspects that the villagers are viewing her as an "uncouth young Aussie," sticking her nose in where she's not wanted. Illthwaite is village where "you don't tell folk what you don't need to tell them, not until you've got some idea exactly what it is they're after."

There's the Rev. Pete Swinebanck who fails to mention the hidden stone that bears Sam's name. There's Mr. Wollass the local squire, and Gerry, his son, who have the power "to really make things happen;" they're men of influence, but hardly a charismatic figures. Gerry initially spurns Miguel's enquiry into his Catholic family and heritage, while Thor Winander, with his "Viking swagger" tells Sam that he knows why the young priest purportedly suicided all those years ago.

And what of Edie Appledore, whose family has run the Stranger House for generations? Her apparent solicitousness is masked by a suspicion that she knows more about Miguel and Sam's ancestors than she's willing to let on, and there's also Noddy Melton, the retired police inspector from Candle Cottage, who says he can certainly "assist" Sam with her inquiries. Lets not forget the strange and enigmatic Gowder twins, whom Sam suspects were responsible for her falling off a ladder in the local church.

Sweeping between the past and the present, The Stranger House is packed with intricate historical detail that ranges from the fifteenth century to the early 1960's. Author, Reginald Hill details the time of Catholic martyrdom, where the Catholics in England, persecuted under the reign of Elizabeth 1, managed to survive, despite long periods of highly organized and legally imposed repression.

The Stranger House combines a deep moral indignation about the mistakes of the past with an atmospheric evocation of village life in the present. The author talks, not just about the seesaw rise and fall of Catholic fortunes in the sixteenth century, but also about how the myths and legend of the Vikings have come to have such an indelible effect on the area.

Most of all, The Stranger House is about how history can have such an unalterable affect on the present, and that in a small self contained village like Illthwaite, true history often only gets written in people's minds. As Edie Appledore remarks to Miguel and Sam: "to read this you've got to be around a long time, because passing through, you've got no chance." Mike Leonard October 05.

One of my favorite gems is the saying "never complain, never explain". It was offered up by Frek, who is just one of several characters that are really great characters. Try to go a day without complaining. Then try to spend the next day without saying anything bad about someone who is not present. These practices can improve your life.
Another was something like "the kind of a place where not only did they stare at strangers, they probably pointed at the sky whenever a plane flew overhead."

"The Stranger House" reads as if it had been written by a masculine version of Victoria Holt--a gothic romance full of ghosts, eerie locales, otherworldly coincidences, and people who are so much not what they seem that it is clear at once this novel is, as one of the characters says, to be taken with a bushel of salt.

Reginald Hill has (perhaps deliberately?) overegged the pudding: Viking blacksmiths, Cambridge dons, Tudor spies, Australian orphans, math whizzes, failed priests, Spanish hidalgos, retired policemen, lords of the manor, purposeful ghosts, gloomy hills, thick fogs, punitive bogs, vindictive trees, and many subplots.

The main action concerns the nearly simultaneous arrival in the Cumbrian village of Ilthwaite of the young half-English scion of a Spanish sherry-producing family and the red-headed young daughter of Australian wine producers--she's a math prodigy. He (a former Catholic seminarian) is tracing the activities of an Elizabethan-era priest, and she is tracing the family of her grandmother. Needless to say, these activities turn out to be inextricably interwoven with each other.

Long spates of single-person narrative with abundant detail slow down the plot, and while the historical detail is interesting, and the writing, page to page, is good, this book is best enjoyed as a guilty pleasure--perhaps on a dark and stormy night.