Title:
The House of Lost Whispers
Author:
Jenni Keer
Publisher: Boldwood
Books
Pages:
378
My
GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
In
1912, thirteen-year-old Olivia Davenport is orphaned when her father, author
Jasper Davenport, and mother Selina die on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
Olivia is invited to live with her father’s friend, Sir Hugo Fairchild and his
wife Cynthia and their four sons, Clarence, Louis, Howard and Benji, at their
lavish home, Merriford Manor.
The
new house becomes the setting for Olivia’s overactive imagination, which she
uses to deal with her grief, imagining that her parents aren’t dead but that
they have lost their memories and will someday find their way to her.
Moving
to an unused part of the mansion, Olivia has the initially unsettling
experience of being able to hear and converse with a man called Seth who seems
to be living on the other side of the wall in her tower bedroom. Both think the
other is a ghost or a product of their overwrought imaginations.
Meanwhile,
with the war breaking out in Europe, Sir Hugo and Lady Cynthia watch with
increasing dismay and sorrow, as one by one, three of their sons go to war and
never return.
It’s
only after the war that Olivia realizes that Seth lives in another world where
her parents are alive. And now she wants to get to that other world. But how
can she find a way into his world?
I
liked Olivia, her imagination, her contentment in her solitude, her longing for
her parents, her faither, her larger than life outlook, her willingness to
stand up for the bullied, Benji. These are the traits that get her in trouble,
pushing some of the events forward, particularly in the fate of Seth, the
undergardener.
I
liked that Olivia wasn’t coy but knew exactly what she wants with regard to her
future and the role she wanted to play in it. That she imagines a life for
herself that isn’t limited to marriage and keeping house. But the scene in
which she pleasures herself and explores her own sexual awakening was unreal
and completely out of sync with the reality of an older teenager in the
aftermath of World War I.
Among
the others, the only one I liked was Lady Cynthia, who had the only developing
character arc to speak of. From being standoffish and reserved, she learns to
show affection, to get past her hangups. It’s a pity she ceased to play a role
in Olivia’s life in the section called After the War.
I was
a little uncomfortable with the scenes between Olivia, as a child, and Seth,
because of the vast age difference between the two. While these scenes are
driven by her imagination, there is no explanation for why Seth should turn out
to be the one big love of her life.
It’s
also more than a little strange that Olivia, no stranger to grief after the
death of her parents and then the death of her fiancé soon after, should
suddenly forget him, and begin to imagine that a guy she really doesn’t know
all that well is the one great love of her life. What’s more, she is not even
mildly curious about her parents who are alive and well in the other world.
The
novel suffers because it tries to become too many things at once. Until the 23
percent mark, nothing happens. When things start happening, the novel starts
shifting from one genre to another.
In the
first part, Before the War, we get a hint of magical realism. This part of the
novel is more than a little bulky. While the boys are away, and Olivia is
basically entertaining herself, these scenes and chapters were boring and
ordinary. Nothing of any significance happens during this period.
In
Part II, During the War, we get historical fiction, and even war fiction, of
sorts. This was the part I liked the most. The author brings out well the sense
of bravado and adventure with which young men went out to the battlefront,
unaware of the horrors that awaited them. The victorious nations found
themselves just as broken as those they had defeated.
Through
Clarence, the author gives us her views on the utter futility of war. Clarence
says, “As a species, why are we so destructive?”
His
mother tells him, “Poetry won’t sustain you in the trenches,” when poetry is
sometimes the only thing that has the power to get us through the dark times.
In
Part III, After the War, the brief hint of magical realism returns, then gives
way to romance and a bit of a mystery, when Olivia tries to uncover why Seth’s
old love suddenly disappeared.
This
is where the problem arises, with the book trying to be several books at once.
The back-of-the-book synopsis gives us a sense of this being a time-slip,
parallel world issue, but in time, the romance between Olivia and two other
characters takes precedence. I was disappointed by this turn.
Also,
the parallel world bit doesn’t show up until quite deep into the book, when we
have almost despaired of even seeing it. The explanation of how the parallel
world came into being was interesting, but then it was sidelined and the story
ended up being just another historical romance.
The
idea of another world being created out of nothing, a world in which the
Titanic did not crash, unleashing a whole different set of possibilities and
history, was interesting, but wasn’t explored on a larger scale. All we are
left with is a world in which Olivia’s parents did not die, but the World War
still took place.
It
would have been better if the author had found some way of getting Olivia to
the other world where her parents lived. Instead, we get a muffling of the
parallel world in favour of making do with the current one.
I also
disagree with the notion that Olivia and Seth are the same in both worlds. A
person’s nature and character are heavily influenced by their experiences. An
Olivia that had not known grief and sorrow would grow up to be very different
from one that had. It would have been better if the book had ended without the
forced and rushed happy ending.
(I
read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and
NetGalley.)
