Overall: 3/5
Plots and Themes: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 3/5
Attention Grabbing: 3/5
London in 1940 is on the precipice of war, no place for a literature student like Ruth Gladstone anymore. So she escapes to the country with her grandmother to visit a great-aunt she never knew existed. While she becomes engrossed in the town rumors and wartime gossip, she investigates the long-standing urban legend of a white lady ghost who haunts the hillside with the help of her new neighbor, a wounded soldier with an even more wounded wife.
I liked quite a few parts of the story. It had a lot of POVs and it did a good job bringing the townspeople to life through them. Ruth was a great protagonist to follow with her curiosity and strong drive to get to the bottom of things. Though she probably felt closer to 18-20 than 25, she also lived a sheltered life. Her relationship with Malcolm was strange and very deliberately ambiguous at the end. I think it makes sense, and I'm glad we didn't try to vilify Elise for her circumstances, but I also think we spent a whole lot of time to basically get nowhere.
The ghost story took the back seat through the whole narrative. It was convoluted and it wasn't all that fun to follow because the ghost wasn't really doing anything. Rather than a ghost story or a mystery, I think this book would be better framed as a way to depict the more common WWII stories, what many of the people did to escape the tragedies of wartime. Not the most exciting thing out there, but the reality for many people and an interesting time in history.
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