Grace Vermuyden is desperate to be a good mother. She has married a man she thinks will make a stable husband - one who will stick around and provide for his children. The weight of her chaotic childhood is heavy upon her and she will do everything within her power to make sure her own daughters never experience the horror she has had to hide. For Grace has secrets...ones she has kept hidden, even from her husband, Patrick.
Grace intends that her own daughters will fulfill the dreams that were denied to her by the events of her childhood.
Lilly, popular and clever, has never been a worry to her parents and at seventeen, she looks sure to have a golden future.
Ten year-old Mia, is the little oddball of the family - for ever in trouble and misunderstood, but with a loving heart - she is the one that Grace worries about.
Then Lilly mysteriously collapses one day in class and Grace's carefully ordered world comes crashing down. When she uncovers clues about Lilly's secret teenage life and heartbreak, Grace becomes consumed with paranoia and cannot settle until she knows the truth. Who is Cormack? How can she have let this happen? Has she failed as a mother after all?
As Grace's mania takes over, Mia is left to her own devices and starts to develop some quirky theories of her own about Lilly's illness, related to the Saxon burial site nearby. Her attempts to put everything right for those she loves, will have unforeseen and devastating consequences.
*********************************************************************************
This is a story about what happens when the burden of keeping secrets becomes too much: when people get caught in the undercurrents caused by these secrets, especially children trying to come to terms with what they have found out by accident - or what they think they have found out.
So many characters in this book are keeping secrets from one another and it soon becomes clear that trying to keep these hidden is slowly tearing them up inside and having a terrible effect on their relationships with each other. Can you ever know the whole truth about someone? Are they really the person you think they are?
This was such a delicious and emotional book to read. The title Beneath The Surface is so fitting and works on more than one level - as the story unfolds, you can see that the thread of secrets being hidden under the surface is reflected so beautifully in events tied to the waterways of the Fens and the archaeological dig taking place near-by. The hidden secrets and dangers under the water and the earth, must eventually come to the surface - as must the human secrets too.
This is a very interesting portrayal of the relationship between mothers and daughters. It explores Grace's desperation to be a good mother, unlike her own, but also shows that she has no idea how to do this. Her frantic efforts to succeed take her way beyond what is proportional and she often ends up alienating those she loves by doing this. Grace is damaged by her childhood, and by hiding her experiences away, she has not healed from them at all. They have always been there, eating away at her heart and warping her thoughts.
The characters of Lilly and Mia are also beautifully drawn. Lilly's angst, her feelings of first love, infatuation, hurt at being rejected, trying find her on place in the imperfect world around her....these are all so palpable and they will take you back to those awful, heartbreaking teenage years so clearly. She is struggling and so badly needs a hug and some understanding, but is unable to find this in Grace, because of the pressure Grace unwittingly puts upon her.
Mia is such a caring little soul. She does not understand the ways of the world at all, and is actually outrageously funny, sometimes without meaning to be, because to the uncompromising way she looks at the world. Yes, she is frustrating and is determined to go her own way, but she cares so deeply for the few people she loves that she will do anything to make things right, if she can. I loved her.
I have to say that the men in this story do not come out of it well. Patrick is an excellent example of how not to be a husband! He has his own secrets, which he must realise will eventually be impossible to hide from Grace and he does not ever seem to have made an effort to really get to know his wife - everything with him is on the surface and he is happy to keep it this way.
As for Cormack, well he is the epitomy of everything you do not want for your teenage daughter - vain, selfish, manipulative and caring only for himself. Typical bad boy material, that you can only hope your daughter will eventually see through. God, those teenage years are tough!
As the emotional turmoil of the story builds to a climax, the tension is reflected in the weather, as a massive storm unleashes itself on the Fens. Harsh truths must be confronted as our characters battle against the weather, and like the quiet that comes after the storm, they can only start to move on once their secrets have been laid bare - however, painful this is.
This is an all-consuming tale of family, which I found hard to put down and I absolutely sobbed at the end. You will not be sorry that you gave Fiona Neill's Beneath The Surface your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment