Place of Secrets

A runaway bestseller in Britain with more than 100,000 copies sold, a riveting historical mystery in the tradition of Kate Morton

The night before it all begins, Jude has the same nightmare that haunted her as a child: running through a dark forest, crying for her mother. Now her six-year-old niece, Summer, is having the same dream, and Jude is frightened for her.

A successful auctioneer, Jude is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband. When she's asked to value a collection of scientific instruments and manuscripts belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely eighteenth-century astronomer, she leaps at the chance to escape London for the untamed beauty of Norfolk, where she grew up. As Jude untangles Wickham's tragic story, she discovers threatening links to the present.

What do Summer's nightmares to have do with Starbrough folly, the eerie crumbling tower in the forest from which Wickham and his adopted daughter, Esther, once viewed the night sky? With the help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude searches for answers in the wild, haunting splendor of the Norfolk woods. Dare she leave behind the sadness in her own life and learn to love again?

Rachel Hore's "A Place of Secrets" is a triumph.