Everybody has a story to tell.

The most fascinating thing about this novel is it’s a book within a book (a future book??!!); more likely a story within a story within a story – something like standing in a room full of mirrors and wondering at reflections within reflections. At a precise point in time; these reflections melt away and we get a twisted view of the reality.

Nor I’m not turning philosophical neither giving away the plot. Without going there also, there is so much to go on about how methodically, brilliantly this book has been written. The way Diane Setterfield builds up the story, gives due & different standpoints to each character and the way the core unfolds more like a lotus than onion. Tears will well up in any sensitive reader’s eyes but the way Vida Winter has emerged from all that grim astonishes them more. She’s all grit, determination and steely demeanour afar; but it takes a ‘wolf’ to hound the truth.

The landscapes add more volume to this story; sometimes forming a background and sometimes filling the blank spaces in time. At the end of the day, you might conclude this to be a story of a family but then too every family has its own story behind the story which everybody knows. Who, when and how to decide which of these stories hide a truth or fester a wound never to be healed, a gap never to be filled & a grief never to be lulled.

I particularly liked the discussion points given at the end of book. And like the story itself, they linger in your mind long afterwards.

This is one of those books which will walk with me for a very long time.