Down to the Sea
This intriguing historical novel opens in 1981, when Rona and Craig move into a large sandstone mansion, Wardie House, Newhaven, Edinburgh, which they are converting into a small luxury care home. However, Rona hears strange grinding sounds at night whenever there is a dense fog over the Firth of Forth. That the house was once a poorhouse with evidence of barred windows and a dark cellar adds to the sense of doom that hangs over it.
In 1898, young Jessie is dispatched because her mother considers her cursed. Recently her fisherman father and all his crew were killed when their boat sank just because Jessie briefly stepped aboard. Jessie is now known as Winzie—Scots dialect for a cursed person. She even has a birthmark visible on her face.
Rona and Craig soon meet their new neighbour, Martha, who lives in the old lodge cottage. She claims to be from California but later says she is Canadian. Very soon, she is always “popping round” although she never lets Rona step beyond her own front door. Rona is suspicious and also traumatised by the horrid old pram in the dark cellar, but might that be because she is pregnant?
As the novel progresses, the two timelines alternate, both full of fear and danger, speeding to convergence when we finally learn what happened at Wardie House.
This page-turning historical mystery holds many twists and turns, including dead babies, and diamonds, either paste or real. I felt all this made an already atmospheric novel too melodramatic towards its climax for my liking, and I would also have preferred it if the two timelines hadn’t alternated quite so often. Nevertheless, for cold winter nights, an excellent read which held its interest to the very last page.
