Blog Tour - The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman

Today I am delighted to be taking part in the blog tour to celebrate the publication of Rowan Coleman's latest novel, The Girl at the Window.

A beautiful new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Memory Book and The Summer of Impossible Things 

The Girl at the Window is a beautiful and captivating novel set at Ponden Hall, a centuries-old house on the Yorkshire moors and famously used as a setting for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Known as the place where Cathy’s ghost taps on the window, Emily Bronte used to visit often with her sisters and use the extensive library there. It’s a magical place full of stories. 

In The Girl at the Window, Ponden Hall is where Trudy Heaton grew up, but also where she ran away from… Now, after the devastating loss of her husband, Trudy returns home with her young son, Will, who refuses to believe his father is dead. While Trudy tries to do her best for her son, she must also attempt to build bridges with her eccentric mother. And then there is the Hall itself: fallen into disrepair but generations of lives and loves still echo in its shadows, sometimes even reaching out to the present...

The Girl at the Window is hauntingly beautiful, and centred on an epic love story with a twist that draws you in fast. The strong themes of grief, absent fathers and maternal instincts are consistent emotional pulls throughout. Trudy and Abe are the ultimate love story, but there is also a wonderfully atmospheric ghostly mystery to be solved as well.

When I heard that Rowan Coleman was writing a novel based at the setting for Wuthering Heights I was immediately awaiting its publication and it was well worth the wait!

The Girl at the Window is set at Ponden Hall, a house set on the Yorkshire Moors, which adds an air of mystery and intrigue to the story. Add to this the eerie atmosphere and the ghosts that reside in the property and it sets the scene perfectly.

I really enjoyed the book - it is a different style to Rowan Coleman's back catalogue but it is fantastic. Rowan's love for Wuthering Heights is evident throughout the book as the storyline mirrors some of its predecessor but it is a story that is around family, with estranged families reuniting and the loss of a father.  I don't usually like ghost stories but The Girl at the Window is an exception to the rule - it is so much more than a ghost story and has characters that I empathised with and cared with.

I recommend this book as a great summer read. It transports the reader directly to the Yorkshire Moors and I will be rereading Wuthering Heights again soon to remind myself of the magic it instils.

Thank you to the publishers, Ebury, and to Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour and for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.