Ad – review. I was sent a copy of this book for review purposes and all thoughts are my own.
Today I am involved in the book tour for The mystery of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson. Lesley Thomson grew up in west London. Her first novel, A Kind of Vanishing, won the People's Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel, The Detective's Daughter, was a #1 bestseller and the resulting series has sold over 800,000 copies. Lesley divides her time between Sussex and Gloucestershire. She lives with her partner and her dog.
1940. At Yew Tree House, recently widowed Adelaide Stride is raising her two daughters alone – but it’s not just the threat of German invasion that keeps her up at night. She is surrounded by enemies posing as allies and, while war rages, she grows sure that something terrible is about to happen.
A BODY THAT REVEALS THEM ALL.
2023. Soon after Stella Darnell begins her holiday at Yew Tree House, a skeleton is found in a pillbox at the bottom of the garden. The bullet hole in the skull tells her that the person was murdered. This triggers the unravelling of a mystery eighty years in the making. Stella will learn that Adelaide was right to worry – the fighting might have been happening abroad, but the true enemy was always much closer to home...
The Mystery of Yew Tree House is the 9th book in the Detective's Daughter series although works as a standalone novel. I read this as a standalone however felt that I would have benefited from reading the previous books and had more of a background on the characters Stella and Jack. With that said it didn't stop me from understanding and enjoying the story overall. If you enjoy crime/ murder mystery novels then the premise of The mystery of Yew Tree House may be right up your street.
I enjoyed the history aspect of the story in the 1940s during the war such as about the home guard, pillboxes and the top-secret army known as the Auxiliary Units. The story is in a dual timeline featuring widower Adelaide in the 1940s getting through the war and how she feels that something awful is about to happen. The second timeline is 2023 where Stella and her partner Jack go on holiday with his twins who happen to come across a skeleton whilst playing in the garden of the place they are staying. This is a murder mystery with twists and turns along the way.
