Girls of Brackenhill, an intriguing newly published mystery by Kate Moretti, begins when Hannah Maloney is summonsed to her Aunt Fae’s death in a suspicious car accident. Seventeen years after she left Brackenhill behind when her sister Julia disappeared during their last summer there, she hardly knows Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart any more. She and Julia had been dumped in the castle by her dysfunctional mother for several years during the summer months, but that had come to an abrupt halt the year Julia disappeared. Now she returns to face and make sense of repressed memories.
The book switches from present day to flashbacks of the time during the last summer she and her sister spent in the castle that may be haunted. A discovered bone and strange dreams that sometimes bring on sleep-walking take her on a mission to find what happened to Julia with an answer she may not want to know. As one secret after another comes to light, Hannah must choose whether to follow her leads or continue to live her life on the surface, ignoring the past. She comes to the conclusion that “The problem with living superficially is that the truth always lived in the deep. Truth lived in the mess.” But does the truth include the paranormal happenings that keep popping up?
The plot has as many twists and turns as the narrow crooked road that leads down making switchbacks from the castle to the village below and takes the reader into an unexpected ending. It will not enlighten your understanding nor inspire you to greater heights, but it will entertain you for an afternoon or so.