A House of Light

by Candida Clark

A young photographer returns to her family house after a shocking her flat and its contents have been destroyed in a fire. However, the peace and distraction she had hoped for prove hard to find. Her presence is required at her father's second wedding, and the assembling guests have secrets of their secrets which cast a new and terrible light not only on recent events, but on her family's history, their beautiful old house and all that she held dear.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published March 21, 2001

About the author

Candida Clark is the author of six novels including The Last Look (1998) and The Constant Eye (2000). She has also written film-scripts, short stories, poetry and criticism.

Reviews

[Jade17 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely written but this was actually compared to Atonement. Blasphemy!

[Dorothy · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a writer, you're told to open your novel by giving the reader a "hook" that makes them want to keep reading. It's not enough to expect the reader to plough through a book on the promise of dark secrets on the jacket blurb!

If I hadn't read that blurb, I probably wouldn't have made it through the first two chapters of this novel - but I did, because I knew a fire was imminent, and there would be questions about who lit it, which would give me my "hook". Unfortunately, it didn't.

Before the fire, we were given a brief snapshot of the ex-boyfriend, who had said a few nasty things to her, and had once given her a shove, which resulted in her banging into a wall and bruising herself.

After the fire, Katherine immediately starts to suspect Miles lit the fire. Since the picture of Miles was hardly menacing, this comes out of nowhere and fails to convince. I mean, if you came home to find your home on fire, would you immediately assume someone did it deliberately? And would you immediately suspect your ex, who did nothing more than tell you a few home truths and pushed you away?

It felt to me as though this "mystery" was manufactured - perhaps her editor insisted on an early "hook", because the other "dark mysteries" weren't going to be revealed till much later in the novel. And I decided I didn't have patience to get that far. Didn't finish it.

[Heather Boundy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book that promised one thing and delivered something entirely different. What you think is going to be a mystery, with some crime element involved, morphs into a family drama. This left me somewhat disappointed and let down. The character of the father is somehow unbelievable - we don't find out enough about his inner thinking to make us sympathetic toward him. Could have been so much more.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did not draw me in. I picked it off the shelf knowing nothing about the story. There was no book jacket or images to give me any hints. I spent the first two thirds of the book feeling frustrated at how flat and emotionless the main character was. At the end when things started picking up, I was already just waiting for the end of the book. Definitely not a book I would re-read or recommend to friends.

[Aisling · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish this book. The main character was so caught up in her own head that it made the book bland and boring! Just shows how people who live in their heads all the time come across to others! Was disappointed with this read - first time to read Candida Clark's work and I don't think I'll be going back for more! Disappointing

[Yun Zhen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I thought this was a lousy book. At first I thought it was just the author taking a ridiculously long time to introduce the backstory, but then it seemed like nothing exciting was happening, and indeed not much happened at all by the end of the story. The characters themselves are not made very special, almost able to merge with one another, making the book itself confusing, and preventing any reader from empathising with any of the characters or being submerged into the plot. Throughout the book, you just think, "when is this going to end?" and it feels like almost never. It makes no difference actually if you skip 10 chapters or 20 chapters and personally, it is a waste of your time to read this book.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read this book because I was on vacation and finished my books. This was the only one in the book share not mildewed. It had a promising plot, but was disappointing on so many levels- mainly because with every opportunity she set up to make the book interesting, the author didn't do anything at all.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book, but I felt like I was waiting for something big to happen only it never did.

[Lindsay]

Dull, predictable, with unforgivably 2-D characters.