The Secrets of the Rose
Nicola Cornick
Reviewed by Helen
This is a fabulous story it is a long time since I have read one of Nicola Cornick’s books and I am so glad I picked this one up, set over two time lines centuries apart in the same home and town we meet Dorothy Forester during the Jacobite Rebellion and Hannah Armstrong in the present, the story is intriguing, so well written and it was hard to put down.
1715 the country is on the brink of rebellion, Dorothy Forester lives in Bamburgh Hall with her ailing father, her older brother, Thomas is away at parliament in London and younger brother Nicholas is as Oxford, but trouble is brewing and Dorothy gets caught between the warring factions, all she want is to keep her family safe and then there is the mystery of The Rose a talisman that is hundreds of years old and it is said that her family is the keeper of The Rose and she knows she must keep it safe from falling into the wrong hands. The local blacksmith John Armstrong is there to support and help Dorothy and they get closer throughout the trying times.
Present times Hannah has returned home to Bamburgh to write a biography on a local hero Grace Darling but when she arrives she finds that her step-mother Diana is not well and that she has kept things from Hannah about her brother Brandon and Hannah is determined to get to the truth and this brings her to researching Dorothy Forester another local heroine during the Jacobite Rebellion and the more she digs the more she seems to think that there is a lot more to this myth about The Rose and is there a chance that somehow she is linked to The Rose as well and then danger arrives and like in her past there is someone there to save her Aaron her teenage crush, will they find the answers to the myths and secrets that abound around The Rose?
Nicola Cornick has researched and come up with a story that is intriguing, magical and has the reader thinking about myth, legend and facts, the characters are so very good and I felt a connection to them from the start, well most of them there are some that show their true self and I have no problem highly recommending this one to any reader and lover of a good historical story with a touch of everything in it. I loved it.
My thanks to Netgalley and Boldwood Books
1715 the country is on the brink of rebellion, Dorothy Forester lives in Bamburgh Hall with her ailing father, her older brother, Thomas is away at parliament in London and younger brother Nicholas is as Oxford, but trouble is brewing and Dorothy gets caught between the warring factions, all she want is to keep her family safe and then there is the mystery of The Rose a talisman that is hundreds of years old and it is said that her family is the keeper of The Rose and she knows she must keep it safe from falling into the wrong hands. The local blacksmith John Armstrong is there to support and help Dorothy and they get closer throughout the trying times.
Present times Hannah has returned home to Bamburgh to write a biography on a local hero Grace Darling but when she arrives she finds that her step-mother Diana is not well and that she has kept things from Hannah about her brother Brandon and Hannah is determined to get to the truth and this brings her to researching Dorothy Forester another local heroine during the Jacobite Rebellion and the more she digs the more she seems to think that there is a lot more to this myth about The Rose and is there a chance that somehow she is linked to The Rose as well and then danger arrives and like in her past there is someone there to save her Aaron her teenage crush, will they find the answers to the myths and secrets that abound around The Rose?
Nicola Cornick has researched and come up with a story that is intriguing, magical and has the reader thinking about myth, legend and facts, the characters are so very good and I felt a connection to them from the start, well most of them there are some that show their true self and I have no problem highly recommending this one to any reader and lover of a good historical story with a touch of everything in it. I loved it.
My thanks to Netgalley and Boldwood Books
5 stars
February 7, 2025 by Boldwood Books
