“Overnight, the lives of those who lived at Cuthford Manor were tossed upside down. And as the days turned into weeks, no one seemed to know how to put everything the right way up again.”
What better way to beat the January blues than with a stay at the luxurious Cuthford Manor Country House Hotel? Surrounded by breath-taking landscapes which are almost as dramatic as the lives of the people who inhabit the building itself. It’s 1953, and Angie is now well settled into her role as the firm, but fair, lady of the manor, which seems a lifetime away from her wartime days at Thompson’s shipyard in Sunderland. Of course, the lives of the family she has built along the way, are anything but settled.
Having read (and loved) the previous two ‘Cuthford Manor’ novels, I started ‘A Daughter’s Love’ with firmly established opinions of the primary characters and felt quietly confident that I knew how things would pan out. However, as with all of Nancy Revell’s characters, within a few chapters I found myself questioning everything I already knew about them and racking my brain trying to guess what they were going to do next. By the end of the second (and previous) novel, my opinion of Marlene had gone from that of irritation to respect for the mature young woman she was turning into, and she entered ‘A Daughter’s Love’ having taken on the role of fierce (and very feisty) protector of her family, particularly of her new sister-in-law Lucy, which I really enjoyed in the first few chapters. Her courage and sass really reminded me of Angie and her fearless squad of women welders in Nancy’s earlier ‘Shipyard Girls’ series. That said, without spoiling the plot for anyone who hasn’t yet read this book, as the story progresses, we learn that even the smartest women, like our newly confident Marlene, can have their better judgement skewed entirely by a man, especially the most charming wolf hidden in sheep’s clothing.
“And in that moment, the man she had believed she loved more than anything became the man she hated more than anyone.”
Speaking of being hoodwinked, despite having read all of Nancy’s previous saga novels, as I turned the pages of ‘A Daughter’s Love’, I found that I genuinely had no idea which way the plot twists were going to turn. Yes, I was practically screaming at Marlene at times for having her head turned by a man who I felt, in my gut, was a walking red flag from page one, but the thing about Nancy’s writing is that you never can feel completely confident that you’ve got the measure of any of her characters. Despite all the underlying clues, I still found myself going back and forth on Marlene’s new beau, and that’s to say nothing of all the other plot twists which were interwoven into the story, which also had me changing my mind so often that I practically gave myself whiplash.
“For a fleeting moment, Marlene thought of her previous yearning to be an actress. Well, now was the time to put on an Oscar-winning performance.”
Similarly, even though Mabel had already been well established as the woman we all love to hate, as her story progressed, I found myself discovering new layers of complexity to her character and, for the briefest of periods, having a scrap of sympathy for her. Although, through her final character arc at the end, as much as I hate to admit it, I must say I had nothing but respect for how she navigated that. Again, without spoiling anything, ultimately a leopard does not change its spots, and some people will always be master manipulators, but in Mabel’s case, she played that perfectly to her own satisfying advantage, to the demise of someone who, for once, totally deserved to be on the receiving end of her spite.
“Not for the first time, she felt divided between her life at Cuthford Manor, and those who lived there, and this new life, which seemed to have very quickly, and rather magically, come into being.”
The great thing about having firmly established characters in a saga such as this, is that the writer can juggle multiple plots and character developments, and inter-weave them, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Although, the classic ‘just one more chapter’ promise I make to myself went totally out of the window several times. As I would desperately try to find out what happened next for one character, another character would have an even more dramatic spanner thrown into the works – making it utterly impossible to put the book down. Even the ending, which I approached with a thought of ‘how can she possibly wrap all of these different plotlines up in a satisfying way?’, somehow, in true Nancy style, brought the individual characters’ journeys to perfect conclusions, whilst leaving a hilarious cliff-hanger for the two main villains of the story that has left my imagination whirring as to how that will unfold in the ‘Cuthford Manor’ universe. Although I wanted those two to get their just desserts, to be out of sight and with nothing to their names, in many ways they deserve each other, and a lifetime together is the most fitting punishment for them both.
It may be time to say goodbye to Cuthford Manor, but my mind, and those of all the readers who have enjoyed this series, will definitely continue to work overtime theorising about how the dynamic of Roeburn Hall’s new inhabitants would have played out next!
Thanks Nancy for another great series, can’t wait to see what you have in store for us readers next!
Clyde's Corner 