In 1940, Isabelle de Florian locked the door to her flat on the Rue Blanche for the last time. Inside was a time capsule from France's glorious Belle Epoque era, 1871 to 1914. Virtually every surface was covered with the gifts her grandmother, Marthe de Florian, had received from wealthy, powerful male admirers when she was the pre-eminent Demimondaine (courtesan) of Paris society. When Isabelle dies in 2010 at the age of 91, her will mysteriously leaves the flat and its contents to Cat Jordan, an American photographer who is the granddaughter of Isabelle's closest friend, Virginia, an American who spent many years living with Isabelle and Marthe in the 1930s. Cat, however, had never heard her grandmother speak of Isabelle, and Isabelle's descendants know nothing of the flat. Why did Isabelle turn her back on the apartment? Why did she not leave it to her own family? Why did she leave it to Virginia's granddaughter when she never contacted Virginia after 1940? These are just a few of the questions that Carey answers as she meticulously unfolds the story.
The time capsule flat actually existed. It was unsealed in 2010, and it was indeed owned by Isobelle de Florian. The story Carey tells, however, is an intriguing and absorbing fictional tale told by a master storyteller who grabs the reader and does not let go. In her more recent, "The House by the Lake," Carey unfolds her inspired tale even further. I read each novel in one sitting apiece, and I am impatiently awaiting her next novel.
Print Length: 282 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (May 26, 2015)
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
In "The House by the Lake," Ella Carey rolls out a story of a "schloss" or landed estate, in the former East Germany that was almost destroyed, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviet occupation, and that has been left to rot in a village that is also dying. In telling the story of this schloss, Carey focuses on 94 year old Max Albrecht and his granddaughter, Anna, living in 2010, San Francisco. After the story breaks about a time capsule flat in Paris, opened after 70 years of abandonment, Max asks Anna to do one favor for him. He has never spoken of his past, but he asks her to retrieve something for him hidden in the schloss, his family's ancestral home.
"Picture Miss Seeton" was first published in 1968, but the setting is not the swinging England one associates with the 1960s. Instead, the interaction between the characters, as well as Carvic's description of village life, could easily be placed at any time in the 1950's. As one who enjoys to time travel while reading, I found this to be one of the book's greatest attractions.
The year is sometime in the 1960s and Scotland Yard is stumped. There is a child murderer on the loose and the Yard has no clue as to who it is or why the children are being murdered. Detective Superintendent Delphick, known as "The Oracle," calls in Emily Seeton, ("MissEss"), a retired art instructor who helped him solve a series of murders in "Picture Miss Seeton," the first novel in this series.