The Angel Tree
A captivating mystery from the bestselling author of The Seven Sisters series
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Angel Tree is a powerful story of family mysteries and forgotten pasts, from Lucinda Riley, international bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series.
Thirty years have passed since Greta left Marchmont Hall, a grand and beautiful house nestled in the hills of rural Wales. But after a tragic accident, more than two decades of her life have vanished from memory. When she returns to the Hall for Christmas, she has no recollection of her past there.
Then, during a walk through the wintry landscape, Greta stumbles across a grave in the woods. Though the inscription is weathered, the headstone still tells her: a little boy is buried here.
The discovery strikes a chord in Greta's mind, igniting a quest to recover her lost memories. A quest that will take her deeper into her own life, and that of her daughter . . .
'Sweeping, absorbing, beautifully written and utterly compelling' – Lancashire Evening Post
A version of this story has previously been published under the title Not Quite an Angel, under the name Lucinda Edmonds – now extensively rewritten as The Angel Tree.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
U.K.-based bestseller Riley (The Seven Sisters) applied years of writing perspective to this rewrite of her 1995 novel, Not Quite an Angel (written as Lucinda Edmonds), and the story shines through her smooth prose. But its expansion into a nearly 700-page behemoth is unjustified even by its sweeping melodrama, stretching across three generations of women from WWII into the 1980s. The story is too shallow and linear for an extended family chronicle and not nearly tight enough for a thriller. Greta Marchmont, who's had amnesia for 20 years following an accident, returns with her best friend (and nephew by marriage), David Marchmont, to the estate in Wales where she spent her early adulthood. She stumbles across the gravestone of her young son, Jonny, and suddenly begins to recall her life's events. She remembers that she struggled to raise Jonny's disturbed twin sister, child star Cheska, by herself; to her shock, she realizes that she harbored romantic feelings for David. The novel's framing, the roughly chronological revelation of decades of history, and the book's length leave readers slogging through endless details to get to the plot points they know must be there.
