Bitter Orange, by Claire Fuller (2018)
This is a very strange book. The year is 1969. Frances Jellico is a self-taught expert on English garden architecture and bridges. Her mother, with whom she has been living, has just died, so 39-year old Frances has accepted a job cataloguing a dilapidated English manor that was recently purchased by a wealthy American. Frances has lived a very sheltered life.
She has been relegated to live in two attic rooms in the manor. She will be sharing space in the house with Cara and Peter, who have also been hired by the American to catalogue the contents of the manor. They have the rooms below Frances’s attic apartment. Before she formally meets them, Frances discovers that there is a peephole in her bathroom where she can see into Cara and Peter’s bathroom.
Cara is inclined to tell stories. Although she is from Ireland, she pretends that she is Italian. After leaving her home behind in Ireland, she recreated herself as an Italian and spins tales of her so-called exotic life. Frances is gullible and believes Cara’s tales, but Peter warns her that all is not what it seems. But is Peter being straight up with Frances?
The novel jumps from 1969 to 20 years in the future when Frances is dying in a hospital bed remembering the past. As we delve into the novel, we realized the events of that 1969 summer were much darker than they first appeared.
I was intrigued by the initial portion of the novel, but the last third seemed to drag.
Read: July 21, 2021
3 Stars
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