The Cheesemaker's House by Jane Cable

 

The Cheesemaker's House by Jane Cable is a modern day romance with a lavish sprinkling of a paranormal/ghost story.

When Alice Hart discovers her husband had an affair with his secretary, she decides to leave Reading and move to their cottage in Great Fencote, Yorkshire. She brings her spaniel William with her. 

"All I wanted to do was run away. My friends told me I was nuts to cut myself off from them and hide at the other end of the country, but to be honest I was frightened I might need them too much".

Alice's new abode is not as quiet as expected. Through the night she can hear sad eerie crying in the vicinity, but cannot pinpoint where it comes from exactly.

She meets Owen Maltby in the local cafe, and they soon become friends. Owen is a trained pharmacist, who currently works in the cafe.

The old cottage needs a lot of work, and there's the old barn that would make a holiday let after being converted. Owen suggests the name of the local builder to help with the project. 

Richard is single, dark and handsome, and way too overfamiliar. Alice doesn't seem to mind his carefree attitude.

It's not Richard she is drawn to. Owen is an enigma. He is intelligent, thoughtful, religious and quite unusual. Some of the locals call him a weirdo, yet many seek his counsel. It so happens, Owen is a charmer, or a white witch, and people go to him for cures. His gift has been passed down to him by his late grandmother.

 Strange things continue to happen in Great Fencote. Alice is startled to encounter Owen in the most unusual places, which unsettles her.

"Who, or what, have I seen on the village green a total of three times now? The thought it might be a what occurred to me at about three in the morning, but in the bright light of day I remember that I don't believe in ghosts". The facts just don't make sense. 

Alice is finding it hard to accept there are things happending around her that she doesn't understand. "I am not a great believer in the paranormal, but a disappearing Owen and untraceable tears definitely come in that category - if only by definition."

Alice's cottage, The Cheesemaker's House, has secrets of its own. It harbours the tragic past, which threatens to spill over into the present and ruin Alice's chances of a new love.

Could Alice, Owen and Richard discover the painful secrets of the old cottage and lay its ghosts to rest?  

The Cheesemaker's House is an evocative and haunting romance, with time-slip components. It will appeal to the fans of Kate Ryder and Barbara Erskine.

The Cheesemaker's House is a slow-paced and atmospheric narrative. There is a strong supernatural element to the story, but it's not a jump-scare-horror, more of a chilling mystery, melancholic and heartbreaking. The present narrative moves seamlessly into the past, which echoes down through the ages.

Owen's character is a strange mix of contradicting attributes. He is a kind, caring healer, who gives comfort to the dying, without a thought about the cost to his own health, both physical and mental. He is also socially awkward, quirky and difficult. Some of his actions/behaviours made me think that he might be neuro-diverse.

I have enjoyed Jane Cable's books in the past (The Faerie Tree and The Forgotten Maid), and love her romance stories with the elements of supernatural and mystical. There is an ongoing theme of love and loss and of how fragile we are.

Purchase Links

Amazon: amzn.to/3l68jxq

Apple: https://apple.co/3laPr0h