Tangled Ashes by Michele Phoenix looked interesting to me from the minute it came in the store. The storyline is one where you get mostly contemporary, but there is an interesting historical story also. The historical part is set during WWII in France in a beautiful manor; the Nazis have taken over the manor, but not just for their headquarters in the area. They have other plans for Meunier manor and they are not plans they want people to know about.
50 years later Marshall Becker is hired to help renovate the manor for the new owner’s wife’s birthday. He is short on time and he is in no mood to make it easy for anyone else. He is an alcoholic who thinks he has it under control, but family and friends know better. When his business partner springs the job in France in the hopes that Marshall can get his life back together, Marshall is not happy, but he goes to do the job anyways.
The story is about the manor and all that happened there, but it is also about the people. I was surprised how much I was drawn into the character’s lives. It almost made the historical story secondary. Between Marshall, Jade, the Fallon family and several of the workers, they are rich, well written characters that may make you want to run off to Lamorlaye, France to find them.
This has been one of those books that I stayed up way too late reading. Long after I should have turned my light off and gotten some sleep, I was reading. Because there is a bit of mystery to the story and there are few times where things go “bump” in the night, this book kept my attention throughout the whole thing.
I am really looking forward to reading Michele’s next book, In Broken Pieces, due out in May.
Happy Reading
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