The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall
1939. Having to part with her fiancé on the eve of WWII is the least of Lady Eleanor (Ellie) Fairfax’s worries. Her father, absorbed by his war work, abruptly puts her in the care of his new secretary, Ava Seaborne, a sinister woman who doesn’t let Ellie out of her sight. Strangest of all, Ellie meets an oddly-dressed woman named Megan in the maze on her estate who claims to know future events, including the fact that Ellie will disappear without a trace in a matter of days.
2019. No sooner does landscape gardener Megan Taylor arrive at Foxfield Hall than she becomes caught up in legends concerning the Green Lady, the resident ghost whose power is linked to the ancient well at the centre of the maze. Inexplicably, Megan also meets Ellie, the missing heiress from eighty years earlier, in the maze. Megan becomes obsessed by the story of Ellie’s disappearance, and for good reason: it seems someone intends Megan to be the next missing person.
I enjoyed the feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends as well as the fantasy elements, but the ending tied up all the loose ends a little too neatly for my taste. Thorne’s writing style also has an oddly flat quality that’s at odds with the elaborate legends and secrets. The two protagonists’ inner worlds were not developed as well as I would have liked, either, making them seem two-dimensional and adding to the distant feel of the writing. A competent but not truly engaging read.
