Bluethroat Morning

Six years later her husband Harry, a schoolteacher, is still haunted by her suicide and faithful to her memory. Then he meets nineteen-year-old Helen and they begin an intense affair. But their liaison is darkened by the past. Harry is attracted by Helen’s uncanny resemblance to Arabella – his ancestor’s second wife – whose story inspired Alsion’s final work. Not much was known about Arabella, except that she had drowned herself in the sea at Glaven, her hometown. Fascinated by her photograph, Alision had travelled to the Norfolk village only to mysteriously follow in Arabella’s tragic footsteps. Propelled by their affair, Harry returns with Helen to the scene of his wife’s death, determined to finally make his peace. There they meet ninety-eight year old Ern Higham who holds the key to both Arabella and Alison’s stories. With the media circling, Harry discovers a tale that has been generations in the making and at whose centre may lie the reason for Alison’s suicide. As he pieces together the past and confronts his own pain, Harry discovers that he must relive history to truly understand it. Jacqui Lofthouse has written a subtle mystery, layered with literary resonances, that explores the often troubled relationship between women and their writing. Suffused with the atmosphere of the Norfolk landscape, this is a haunting, compelling novel.