Penhaligon’s Gift (Penhaligon Saga)
The third part of the Penhaligon saga is set in Cornwall in 1911 and is a family saga concerning Anna Garvey and her daughter, Mairead from Ireland, and the Penhaligons, Matthew and his daughter Freya, and his ex-wife, Isabel. In this book, Anna and Matthew are married and Anna is expecting their child. Penhaligon’s Attic is a bookshop which has been recently run by Mairead after the death of Robert Penhaligon, Matthew’s father. The story tells of the love affairs of the next generation: Freya and Tristan (a local historian), James Fry and Nancy, and Lucy Batten and Teddy. The Battens are another family in the local area, whereas James Fry shares a history with Matthew. Tristan has been researching the town where they live and his discoveries about its dark history may impact upon several of the families still living there. The trials and tribulations of the younger generation form the main part of this third story. There is a useful character list at the beginning to give the newcomer to the trilogy an idea of what is going on.
The characters in Penhaligon’s Gift are well-delineated, especially the female ones, and the reader becomes engaged with their exploits and relationships. The back story which involves the local historian, Tristan Mackenzie, and which concerns mysterious papers and books in Charles Batten’s library at Pencarrick, is less convincing. The reader is expected to believe in tales of smuggling, piracy and mysterious name changes that occurred in the past and which lead to the tragic denouement. The story of the Batten family doesn’t have the same immediacy as the story of the Penhaligons, and the characters are less rounded. However, on the whole, the book is entertaining and readable.
