Book
House of Shadows
House of Shadows links three women across different periods through Ashdown House and objects connected with the Stuart court. In the present, Holly Ansell searches for her missing brother and uncovers a mystery reaching back to Elizabeth Stuart, the exiled ‘Winter Queen’, and to the later courtesan Lavinia Flyte. A mirror, a pearl and a long-concealed lie bind the separate narratives together as family secrets and political upheaval echo across centuries.
Each period leaves a different kind of evidence. Royal correspondence and household objects illuminate Elizabeth Stuart’s world, while later family possessions preserve traces of Lavinia that formal history largely ignores. The modern search depends on recognising how stories become attached to objects and how those stories may be deliberately altered to protect property, reputation or inheritance.
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