Lily's House by Cassandra Parkin

With so much darkness and brutality in the world it is not surprising that so many books are written on its numerous incarnations. Yet (and this never ceases to amaze me) some of this writing can be so beautiful and compelling. This is especially true of Lily's House by Cassandra Parkin.

The novel follows Jen, who with her daughter Marianne, has travelled to the south-western coast of England to finalise the estate and arrange a funeral for her estranged grandmother, Lily. Jen has not seen or spoken to Lily in over a decade but as the only living relative the task has fallen to her. The two of them stay in her home in order to clear and sell it on - something that will make their family financially comfortable for the first time. But this is a house where Jen spent her happiest times and is full of childhood memories with a definite mystical feel to them. It is somewhere that makes her re-evaluate her past, plan her future and, eventually, gives her the courage to deal with the present. On the surface they appear to be a happy family with Jen the one working while her musician husband Daniel looks after Marianne and searches for his 'big break'. The longer Jen stays in the house the more the cracks begin to show and the violence in her life and those of past family members starts to emerge, painful secrets long hidden come to light. By the end of this journey Jen has found clarity and focus but in a way she cannot possibly have imagined.

The style of the prose bothered me a little at first, especially the long mobile phone text conversations with Daniel, but the further into 'Lily's House' I went the more fitting it became. With the past told in flashback mixed in with these texts you start to get a clearer image of Jen and her life yet there is never a point where you can predict what comes next. This is an elegantly beautiful and bewitching novel even though its has a dark undertone which initially manifests as a slight sense of unease and climbs inexorably to a surprisingly violent conclusion.

With themes of domestic violence along side the inevitable controlling behaviour, the death of a loved one and the regrets that can bring when things are left unsaid, this is not an easy book to read. By the time these elements come to the fore it is impossible to stop reading and, though for personal reasons I found this incredibly difficult, I am very glad I have read this and I would recommend Cassandra Parkin and the wonderful 'Lily's House' to anyone as ultimately it is about hope and love in their truest forms.