The House Between Tides: A Novel

A young woman inherits a dilapidated -more than that, ruined- old house in a remote island. When she visits, with the idea of turning the house into a hotel/resort, she finds a skeleton in the remains of the house.
This was the family house of a famous painter, who lived there with his young wife 100 years before.

The story narrates both the events of 1910 as well as the situation in 2010.
As the story goes back and forth, we find out more about Theo Blake, the painter, and his family and of Hetty Deveraux, his sister's great grand-daughter, who inherits the house.

I have to say this book is very well written, but there's much description of the natural beauties and wildlife of the island... maybe too much? and for me, it was completely predictable and at 400 pages, way too long for me.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The House Between Tides title, description, and cover captured my imagination. The discovery of a hidden body that's been buried for decades is not the start Hetty had counted on when she arrives at the old house she has inherited. And, her restoration plan seems to fall to pieces too. However, she can't help being fascinated by whom the body could be and bit by bit will she discover deep dark buried secrets...

The book's story takes place both during 1910 and 2010 and I found both time frames fascinating to read about. Sarah Maine has written a captivating tale about forbidden love, regrets and how memories can consume one's life. Some secrets are perhaps not that surprising, but all and all was this book quite intriguing. The only drawback was that now and then did I feel a bit impatient with the story, not bored, I just wanted the characters to get some things to grip, like Hetty telling Giles off or Beatrice realizing why Theo was so obsessed with Cameron (which was pretty obvious why). I loved the books scenery. I could really picture the island and its wildlife.

But, the ending was perfect, tragic, but at the same time uplifting and I'm looking forward to reading more from Sarah Maine in the future.

I chose to read this ARC and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased!

British author, Sarah Maine, delivers an atmospheric mysterious and suspenseful debut, THE HOUSE BETWEEN TIDES —a compelling mix of historic, Gothic and contemporary. A mystery of two women a century apart.

From 1889 (Theo), 1910 (Beatrice) - 1945 to present, 2010, (Hetty) a woman returns to an inherited home and discovers a hidden secret. A crumbling mansion, an estate in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. With the intentions of renovating and selling it as a hotel. Hetty begins her journey.

However, the old house, has secrets, history, and a sordid past. Harriet Deveraux (Hetty) sets out to unravel the secrets and mystery surrounding it’s former owners, Beatrice Blake and her husband Theo, a famous painter (also with a hidden life). The Muirlan House. It was huge. Much larger than Hetty had been expecting. A sign, danger, unsafe, deep out. Private property. She could not wait to see the inside. The place was now hers. An abandoned house. She knew nothing of restoring houses or running a hotel.

The island as her grandmother had described, on the edge of the world. She had been warned. The lawyer acting has her grandmother’s executor had told her the place had been empty for many years and would need work. A nightmare! Some called it a “death trap.” Local assessor James Cameron finds a skeleton beneath the floorboards. There were bones. A corpse. An oval locket on a gold chain. A woman.

In 1910, Beatrice Blake, a young bride, and her husband, a painter, Theo Blake, travel from Edinburgh to Theo’s estate on Muirlan island, the remote Muirlan House. He had a deep bond with the place and inspiration for many of his early paintings. Their marriage does not last. Betrayal. Theo had brought her here to his dream world, eager to share it but his passion had turned aside. Inward, excluding her, darkening to something she could not understand and she had become lost.

Alternating between timelines, between 1920 and 2010, with copyeditor, Hetty Deveraux, arriving from London to the Muirlan House. Grief. Her parent’s death. An accident, but sudden and violent, and now three years later. Loss. A failed takeoff, a crash just beyond the runway. Then her grandmother’s death two months previously from dementia. She felt like she had been sleepwalking ever since.

Hetty had never had the sense of belonging. Her father’s job with the foreign office had meant that home was not a place, but a transient. Her childhood had been spent flying back and forth from boarding school. An old crime with dark shadows lurking over Hetty’s new start.

Theo Blake was something of a recluse, with his last twenty years alone in the house, letting it fall apart around him. It was always said the Blakes left the island together, although she never returned.

Since inheriting the house, Hetty had been trying to learn more about the mysterious Theodore Blake. While his artistic achievements were well-documented, there was little written about his personal life and his later reclusive years were unrecorded except for the fact that he had drowned as an old man while crossing Muirlan Strand.

Maine takes us back to the history of young Beatrice, her family and meeting Theo Blake, the strikingly handsome man. Thereafter a mystery. What drove the couple apart? A connection.

Mystical, moody and dark. Mysterious and intriguing. Richly psychological, the author weaves secrets from both past and present with an evocative setting and story, both haunting and romantic. For fans of Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Karen White, Sarah Jio, and Kate Morton! I also purchased the audiobook, narrated by Justine Eyre for a captivating performance. Looking forward to more by the author.

A special thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

JDCMustReadBooks

Two women are connected by the House Between Tides. One lived there a hundred years ago, Beatrice, and married the owner, Theo Blake, a moody painter of birds, who often destroyed what he most treasured. The other, Hetty, is to inherit Muirlan house, and seeking to renovate it into a hotel, finds a very old corpse beneath the floorboards. Hetty wishes to piece together her family’s forgotten history, the mystery of the woman beneath the floorboards, and the sudden dark period of Theo Blake’s paintings which she found at an art auction. With gorgeous Scottish landscape descriptions, this is a story about forbidden love, poignant art, and the connection between all those who live and work on the island with the mansion between tides. For similar recommended readings, discussion questions, and a themed recipe of Apple Pie Spice cupcakes with caramelized apples, visit: [...]

Kate Morton meets Daphne du Maurier is what attracted me to this book, the cover didn't hurt either. I am a big fan of Kate Morton and there are times all the hype of mentioning the likes of her could lead to a big letdown. Thankfully that is not the case with this one. I don't go out of my way to read anything dark and Gothic, but this one had so many things going for it that I couldn't help but request an ARC (via netgalley).

The House Between Tides begins with a prologue in 1945. Then it alternates between 2010 and 1910 for the rest of the book. I usually love a good prologue, one that lets the reader get a glimpse of what is to come, igniting the imagination and staying in the back of my mind as the story unfolds. I enjoyed this one, it grabbed my attention, as I immersed myself in this story pieces slowly came together.

With an island holding secrets of its own and a dark crumbling isolated manor The House Between Tides was a story about forbidden love with characters that came to life, it was suspenseful and mysterious and hard to put down. It's the type of book where you can forget what's going on around you, getting totally absorbed and it's one of those books that will stay with me long after I finished.

The author's writing style made it all the easier to be drawn in. The descriptions had me visualizing so much here and anticipating what was going to happen next. Hard to believe that this is a debut, but it makes me anxious to see what Sarah Maine is working on next.

Definitely a book I highly recommend and thank you to Atria Books for an advanced copy.

After the death of her last family member, Hetty Deveraux leaves her life in London and heads to her family's ancestral home in the outer Hebrides of Scotland. She has grand plans for Muirlan House. Turning it into a hotel. When she arrives and sees the house has been vandalized and almost brought down by years of neglect and storm damages. And then there is the business of a body having just been found under the floorboards, which brings any plans to a halt.

Now she has a mystery on her hands and is determined to find out all she can about her mysterious ancestor, the artist Theo Blake and his wife Beatrice. Meanwhile her part time boyfriend Giles and his pushy friends are trying to take over and turn the island into some sort of commercial venture, which the Islanders are not happy with.
There are so many secrets and half truths in this book and as we pull one thread, many more appear. The book is told from the points of Hetty, Theo, and Beatrice. Nothing is what it seems and as is typical of small towns, there is a lot of gossip and conjecture.

This book would not let me go. I read it in one day because I couldn't stop. It is a wonderful book and I hope there will be more to come!

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.com and Atria Books/Simon&Schuster

Alert ! Please don't be mislead by comparisons to Kate Morton and Daphne duMaurier. This book is NOTHING like either of those superior authors' work. The setting is the star, the plot and characters are flat and uninteresting at best.

The House Between Tides is a true Gothic novel, complete with a remote location, a creepy old house, and two heroines to root for. Hetty Deveraux in the present day and Beatrice Blake in 1910 are both a bit down-trodden by men who know what's best for them and keep to their own agendas. Both are women most readers will feel a great deal of empathy for, and both start to come to life in that remote area.

Sarah Maine brings the Outer Hebrides to breathtaking, lyrical life; her descriptions were among my favorite parts of the book. Although the plot of The House Between Tides was a bit too predictable for my taste, I did enjoy the psychological aspects of it, and the author certainly has a strong talent for characterization and setting. I look forward to her next book. I recommend it if you are fans of Kate Morton or Daphne du Maurier.

The House Between Tides
by Sarah Maine

I loved Sarah Maine's debut novel.
A part of that is attributable to the reading by Justine Eyre.

The story revolves around a crumbling ancestral mansion.
Hetty Devereaux (2010) has inherited an estate in Scotland's
Outer Hebrides.
Our second protagonist is Beatrice Blake (1910) who then inhabits the estate with husband Theo, a celebrated painter.
This is a novel of atmospheric suspense..
Sarah Maine beautifully communicated to me the literal lay of the land, well defined characters and what I thought was a very workable plot.

The story begins with Hetty visiting the mansion to assess repairs needed and inadvertently discovering human remains beneath a rotting floor board.
The two time lines blend fittingly.

4.5 ★

I really liked this novel even though some parts were a little redundant. About a family who builds a house on a island. the island is accessible by a low tide road. The writer goes from present to past with the main characters. The author did a great job with descriptions island life in early 1900's and the present. It has more twists than I expected. Couldn't put book down after the first couple of chapters.

The House Between Tides is a riveting mystery with a dual timeline.Events in the present are directly linked to those in the past and Sarah Maine seamlessly weaves the two story arcs into a very intriguing novel that is quite gripping.

In the present, Hetty Deveraux is finally ready to make a decision about what to do with the ancestral home she inherited from her grandmother. Her boyfriend, Giles, is pushing her to renovate the dilapidated mansion and open a posh hotel, and while the idea has merit, she is still mulling over her options. Upon her arrival, she is stunned to discover the home is literally falling down and possibly beyond repair. Even more shocking, human bones have recently been discovered and it is quickly determined that foul play is the cause of death. Hetty’s curiosity is immediately piqued and she begins looking into her family’s history in order identify the remains and hopefully unmask the killer.

Hetty has endured several losses in a short span and she has been content to hand over the reins to Giles as she tries to come to terms with her grief. Unbeknownst to Hetty, he has set things in motion to move forward with turning her ancestral home into a lavish hotel. Dismayed by this discovery, she is enchanted by the desolate yet beautiful island and she is enthralled by the family mansion.Hoping the reports that it would literally cost millions to renovate the house are wrong, Hetty is becoming more and more certain she wants to preserve her inheritance instead of turning it into a hotel. Unfortunately, she cannot seem to stand up to Giles and the overly pushy developers whom he hired for the project. While Hetty is a likable and sympathetic protagonist, she is frustratingly passive and unable to stand up for herself for almost the entire novel.

In 1910, Hetty’s distant relative and renowned artist Theo Blake relocates to his home on Muirlan Island along with his bride Beatrice. With very few modern comforts, Beatrice is soon entranced with the stark beauty of the island but she is soon dismayed her husband’s increasingly fractious relationship with Cameron Forbes, the son of his factor. Beatrice is also frustrated as Theo begins to spend more and more time holed up in his study and less and less time with her. With his mood darkening with each passing day, their fragile marriage begins to crumble and Theo eventually turns into a recluse with the reputation of being a little mad.

Of the two story arcs, Beatrice and Theo’s is the most compelling. Beatrice’s marriage to the twenty years older artist is typical of the time period, but she is definitely not a shrinking violet who passively lets life happen around her. She comes into her own after their arrival on Muirlan Island and while at first she defers to Theo, she quickly begins to form her own opinions about her husband’s treatment of the locals and his unpalatable hobby of killing rare birds for his collection. Beatrice is quite observant as she witnesses Theo’s puzzling reaction to Cameron and she draws her own conclusion about the reasons for the growing discord between them. Her attempts to keep the peace are soon marred by her growing dissatisfaction with her marriage, Theo’s stubborn refusal to take better care of his tenants and the increasingly volatile arguments between Theo and Cameron.

The House Between Tides is a wonderfully atmospheric novel that is fast-paced and impossible to put down. The characters are richly drawn with realistic strengths and weaknesses. The mystery surrounding the newly discovered bones is fascinating and as the story progresses, the victim list is essentially narrowed down to two people. Sarah Maine does a wonderful job keeping readers guessing right up until the big reveal who was murdered and why. Although the final resolution of the various story arcs is a little convoluted, readers will be satisfied with the novel’s conclusion. All in all, an absolutely wonderful debut that fans of the genre are sure to enjoy.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

The House Between Tides is Sarah Maine's debut novel.

I always stop to look at a cover before turning the first page and this one definitely caught my eye. A mysterious old house surrounded by water? I'm in.

Hetty Deveraux is living in London when she is contacted by a solicitor informing her that she has inherited Muirlan House in the Scottish Hebrides - a house that is only accessible twice a day from the mainland when the tides are out.

Hetty is shocked, but sees the inheritance as a chance to escape London and her boyfriend. Perhaps the estate can be fixed up and turned into a hotel? But when she arrives, the damage is greater than she could have imagined. Uninhabited since 1945, the house has fallen into abject disrepair. When a set of bones is located under some floorboards, any idea of repairing the building is quickly halted. Who could the bones belong to? What happened? When? Why?

Absolutely delicious! Spanning one hundred years, The House Between Tides is told in a then and now format, alternating chapters from Beatrice's voice in 1910 and Hetty's in 2010.

Beatrice is the young wife of noted painter and wildlife enthusiast Theo Blake, who owns the island and manages the crofters. Life on Muirlan is not quite the idyllic experience Beatrice had imagined. There are secrets and simmering tensions between family members as well as the island community - and between Beatrice and her new husband. And neither is it quite what Hetty had envisioned either. Those secrets and tensions seem to have survived the years, affecting the present. Issues brought to light in 1910 are still relevant in 2010.

Ahh, what more could you want? A rambling mansion, desolate setting, secrets, a body, suspicious and unhappy locals, love stories (yes, plural, there are two of them - one in each time frame) and a lovely, atmospheric journey to the ending where the narratives finally meet. A decidedly Gothic feel.

I enjoyed both Beatrice and Hetty as lead characters. But, I was drawn more to Beatrice, for although she was constrained by the societal expectations of the time, she stayed true to herself and had spunk. Hetty is constrained more by her own self, her insecurities and her inability to speak up for herself.

I enjoy dual narrative novels. The reader is privy to both timelines, able to fit together the pieces and see where they might fit together. However, I do find myself staying up late with the back and forth - I always need just 'one more chapter' before shutting off the lights.

Maine paints a beautiful setting in The House Between Tides - the sea, the sun, the sand, the sky and the wildlife are all wonderfully and vividly described - making it very easy to imagine the island.

I quit enjoyed The House Between Tides and look forward to Maine's next book. Fans of Kate Morton and Eve Chase would enjoy The House Between Tides.

Harriet Deveraux inherits Muirlan House, the house between tides, which was once owned by Theo Blake, a distant relative who was a famous painter. Her plan to rebuild it into a hotel becomes compromised when a local engineer, with deep roots in the area, determines it is too deteriorated to be worth the rescue. Human skeletal remains are found under the floorboards in the house’s annex, further complicating her plans. As Harriet works through her choices of what to do with the property, she unwinds the stories of her ancestors revealing long-held secrets. Maine’s writing is simply beautiful. With clarity she tells a story of intertwined families and decades old loyalties. What makes this tale more remarkable, is that it is Maine’s first novel. Brava. I want to read more.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Sarah Maine’s debut novel The House Between Tides. In 2010, Hetty Deveraux contemplates turning the massive house that she has inherited on a remote Scottish island into an upscale hotel. She meets resistance from the cordial but cool locals, who have just found the remains of a body in the decaying home as Hetty arrives to examine the property. Her pushy boyfriend Giles and the two shallow agents he has employed consider the hotel a done deal, but Hetty is not so sure.

The narrative flashes back and forth between 2010 and 1910, when young Beatrice arrives on the island as a new bride with her much older husband, artist Theo Blake. Woven throughout the story are works of art, loves lost, family mysteries, and wild birds.

The descriptions of the island in the Hebrides are very evocative. The author also captures the mansion in its glory in 1910 and in its moldering state in 2010. As a bird lover, I was interested in the thread about the irony of birdwatchers of the past shooting birds and collecting their eggs, no matter how rare or endangered. I was reminded of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black because the house can only be reached when the tide is out, but otherwise they are quite different books. (However, if you liked The Woman in Black you will probably enjoy this book also.)

The House Between Tides is not a perfect book. It takes Hetty too long to grow a spine, and the “bad guy” boyfriend and agents are stereotypical with no depth. Some of the family mysteries are obvious from the start, and I guessed the identification of the body long before the end. Still, I stayed up late finishing The House Between Tides, something I don’t do that often anymore. I also love the cover!

I recommend The House Between Tides to lovers of romantic gothic fiction and mysteries. I read an advance reader copy.

I liked the book and wanted to keep reading despite the fact that I saw every plot twist coming by page 50 or so. I wanted to see how characters would react. The whole time I read this, I had the feeling I’d read this before. It’s a combination of Jane Eyre and The Shipping News and The Book of Speculation: another book where another old family home is ready to tumble to the sea and where people live in love tangles and the women are annoyingly controlled by their partners.

Review of THE HOUSE BETWEEN TIDES by Sarah Maine

This debut novel is so reminiscent of the favourite authors of the early 20th century, such as Daphne DuMaurier and Isak Dinesen, in its ability to transport the reader into locale, multiple eras, and inside the minds and hearts of the characters. The main character is the stately mid-Victorian manse, Muirlan House, set inexplicably and dangerously on Muirlan Strand, in the Hebridean Isles, a land of gracious and surpassing beauty, yet terrible storms, a strand where high tide literally isolates Muirlan House.

Just as REBECCA had its Manderly House and its former lady, since deceased, so does Muirlan House have in its past the original founder, a textile baron; an esteemed, later reclusive and possibly deranged painter; his wife, who may have returned to the mainland or perhaps did not; the painter's sister, who auctioned off much of the house's furnishings, then burnt the paintings. Hetty Devereaux in 2010 has lost her parents, then her grandmother; her legacy is a manor near to collapsing, and her spouse a shallow and greedy networker. She determines to both get away from London and to make a success of Muirlan House as a hotel---if it can safely and thoroughly ever be restored.

Disclaimer: The author and publisher provided a digital ARC via NetGalley, for review purpose only, without remuneration. The above constitutes my fair and impartial review of this title.

I very much enjoyed this novel from start to finish. Both stories - present day and past - were compelling. Very atmospheric. Occasionally I had some character confusion - - a lot of names present and past. I loved the descriptions of the island and the weather and the old house. I could not put down once I hit into it.. I look forward to her next novel. Recommend!

I hardly ever write reviews for books, but a novel of this quality from a first-time novelist is impressive. The flashback and forth style for the two time periods keep you guessing.. The characters were interesting and the flow was excellent! Looking forward to more books from Sarah Maine!

I like stories told in two different time frames and this excelled in this. A debut novel by Sarah Maine I am so looking forward to reading this author again and again.

Hetty is our present day main character. Having inherited property in the Outer Hebrides she is faced with a quandary. She is drawn so much to the island, the house and its inhabitants that she wants to do what is best for all. She is swept towards her decision to convert the house into a hotel by Giles her partner and his team behind him who have grandiose plans for golf courses, helipads and all the accouterments of a fancy hotel whereas she is veering towards something else. She also did not realise before she arrived on the island the antagonism that a venture of this nature would have to face, neither did she take into account her own strong feelings both about the house and its history.

Going back to 1910 we have the famous inhabitant of the house, a famous painter Theo Blake and the history of the Blakes (not always good and certainly not a good or kind landlord). A real feudal lord of the manor, Theo for all his brilliance as an artist was indifferent to the needs and wants of his tenants, most of them who lived in abject poverty sacrificing their livelihoods for his artistic needs and the needs for hunting and sports of his friends. The arrival of Beatrice his second wife was for a time a temporary lightening in his life and brought a fresh hope for the island itself but it dwindled in the face of overwhelming odds. Beatrice's subsequent love for Cameron, the factor's son was doomed from the beginning and you knew it would only lead to heartache.

How the two different time frames blended and came into a whole story was very descriptively handled and delicately balanced throughout the book. Characterization was splendid and the detailed description of the island, its birdlife and its natural beauty was beautifully told.

This story has haunted me for the last few months since I read it. The author does a great job of creating an aura of mystery and sadness, and the characters are well-rounded and engaging, and I didn't want to put it down until the last page! (Hint: Try Google-ing the pronunciations of some of the Scottish names -- it will make for a smoother read.)