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The Missing Girls of Alardyce House

Edinburgh 1880. When Amy Osbourne’s parents are lost at sea, she is forced to leave her London home and is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at the opposite end of the country.

Alardyce House is depressing and dreary, her aunt haughty and cruel. Amy strikes up a friendship with her cousin Edward but his older brother Henry is just as conceited as his mother, and a mutual loathing develops between him and Amy.

As her weeks of mourning pass, the realisation begins to dawn on Amy that her aunt has designs on her inheritance and the candidate she favours to be her neice’s husband fills Amy with horror. Struggling in this strange, unwelcoming environment, Amy begins to suspect that something isn’t right at Alardyce House.

There are rumours below stairs of a monster on the loose, local women are being brutally attacked and her cousin Henry is the prime suspect. Alardyce House is full of dark secrets and Amy isn’t sure who she can trust…

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Review

Amy Osbourne is sent to live with her aunt and uncle after the tragic death of her parents. Upon arriving she receives a not-so-welcome from her aunt. Her uncle said that he took her in because of his sister and would not listen to the crap that her aunt said about her. The only ally she had in the house was from her cousin, Edward. His brother Henry is the suspect in women being attacked.

Her stay in the house is oppressive and depressing, as a result, she has an affair with a footman. In the meantime, her aunt is trying to marry her off to Henry for the inheritance. She finds that she is pregnant and needs to flee. Secrets abound in the house and she can't trust anyone.

She ends up staying with a close friend of hers and has a son. They live a life that is what she hoped to have except after years, they have tracked her down. The aunt is deceased by then so her fears of having to marry Henry are over.

As the story goes on it becomes more menacing as Amy finds that the ones she trusted the most are the worst of people. What happens in the last part of the book was so heartbreaking. Amy perseveres and gets her revenge.

I really enjoyed this story. I thought at first that it was going to be a typical gothic novel in the vein of Daphne DuMaurier but I was pleasantly surprised. A page-turner period story, on that I recommend highly.

I received a copy of the book for review purposes only.

Heather Atkinson is the author of over fifty books – predominantly in the crime fiction genre. Although Lancashire born and bred she now lives with her family, including twin teenage daughters, on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. Her gangland series for Boldwood, set on the fictional Gallowburn estate in Glasgow begins with the title Blood Brothers.