House of Spells and Secrets
Three sisters, triplets, in their late 20s, have just lost their mother when they find a photo of a young girl standing in front of an old house, with the note: “Take me home.” Caraline, Saoirse, and Rowan are not your typical young women in 1971. They know nothing of their family beyond their mother, nothing of the house in the photo. But they do each have magical gifts.
The sisters head off to find the house and quickly end up at Swallow Hall, a weirdly haphazard place slowly sinking into Chesapeake Bay. The house’s Keeper, it turns out, is their grandmother. Their mother had fled years ago, soon after she discovered she was pregnant.
The house becomes a character in itself. It changes and grows, it mourns, it keeps secrets and reveals hidden rooms and objects, it keeps out people it doesn’t like. It provides each of the sisters with the right space for her particular magic. But the house needs their help. To save it and themselves, they need to discover why their mother left, and to uncover their own history and another branch of the family tree.
Despite the various forms of magic and the twists and turns of plot, there is no particular suspense in this novel. Each time an obstacle arises, the solution comes soon after, whether the house gives up another of its secrets or Rowan summons a powerful new and inexplicable magic. Although Rowan is the main character, I would have liked to see Caraline’s and Saoirse’s magic in action. I would have liked to see their reunion with the father they never knew. I would have liked to know the significance of the town’s other sets of sisters descended from another early settler. There are more mysteries to be solved.
