The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey is the story of
Alice Carew, a nine-year-old girl left at her grandparents’ estate, Blackwood
Park, in Wiltshire while her parents, Rupert and Selina, are on a business trip
to Burma in 1936. After she writes to her mother about how lonely she is, her
mother decides to have a treasure hunt in which she will leave clues in her
letters for Alice to follow around the estate. When Alice finds the location of
the clue, a letter her mother leaves for her, tells her a story which corresponds
to that location. It is at this point the story flips to the summer of 1925
when 20-year-old Selina was a young and wild woman. Along with her group of
friends, known as the Bright Young People, her escapades were front page news. As
the story flips back and forth between 1936 and 1925, Alice is taken on a journey
of freedom, societal expectations and love. What will Selina’s story reveal to
Alice? What secret has she been hiding all these years?
The Glittering Hour is filled with discovery, heartbreak
and love. There is so much about this story that I wish I could talk about;
however, spoilers, I can’t. The story is told in two parts. Part 1 was a bit
slow and left me wondering where the story was leading. However, Part 2 blew
wide open with a story of love, sacrifice, fear and learning about real love is.
Ms. Grey wove a story so intriguing that even the slow parts kept you wondering
if she was hiding a clue to the mystery and you kept reading. And as I kept
reading the more intrigued, I was. I enjoyed Alice as the little girl who loved
her mother and wished her home. Even the characters you were supposed to
dislike, like her grandmother, Lady Lennox, you begin to feel for the woman who
didn’t know how to do anything else but keep a sift upper lip. As the story ended,
I had tears running down my face. I highly recommend The Glittering Hour!
The Glittering
Hour
is available in
hardcover, eBook, and audiobook
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