The Crollalanzas
In Renaissance Venice, the Crollalanzas, a mother and her three daughters, are herbalists and midwives. Viola, the eldest twin, paints portraits on commission. Cesca, the younger twin, is prone to fits, but is pretty and hopes to attract a handsome and rich suitor. Truzia, the younger sister, is clumsy, tactless, and an embarrassment. Happy to be left alone, she scribbles her observations in a secret diary. She also has flashes of clairvoyance and one day ‘sees’ her own death.
When the sisters leave for England, Truzia is horrified to meet Rory Denham, the man who will murder her, on the London docks. She’s rude to him, but when the eccentric Marquess of Abbingford, Rory’s grandfather, invites the family to his rambling ancestral home, Truzia becomes fascinated with the ghosts that haunt the library at Threavewode, many of whom seem to be from the future.
In the present day, Ms. Draper enters a charity raffle and wins a holiday at Threavewode house on Otter Island. She’s thankful for a chance to rest and relax, but she finds the library haunted by the playful and teasing Truzia, and random pages of an old diary are scattered about the shelves. There are also visions of Briar Lockwood, a modernist 19th-century painter, who is said to have stayed at Threavewode and whose family considered her insane. She also may have been haunted by Truzia.
The novel is long and convoluted in the manner of Tristram Shandy, but it is also witty, intelligent, and humorous, and offers a romantic love story. The jumps from the present to the various periods of the past require time for readers to come to grips with the story, but once achieved, the pages keep turning with increasing pleasure. I thoroughly recommend it and didn’t want it to end.
