Yasmin > Recent Status Updates

Both timelines are trying to build suspense and deepen the connection between past and present, blending historical intrigue with contemporary tension while keeping key revelations hidden.

However, I’m struggling to connect to the stories - I feel the writing is heavy laden with information that isn’t pushing either story forward. Honestly, I’m not sure I will finish the book.

I’m enjoying be in reacquainted with Hazel, Betty, Irene and Merle.

It has all the ingredients for a compelling, layered mystery: a believable, empathetic protagonist; a vivid, atmospheric setting; real stakes; and a tension between the safe, familiar world and the dangerous unknown. The author has taken the time to lay the groundwork. It feels promising, thoughtful, grounded, and with quiet but building menace.

Meredith Martin, an American researching Debussy in Paris, also seeks clues to her ancestry. While wandering the city, she’s drawn into a tarot studio. Though skeptical, she agrees to a reading. The cards predict change, fate, and transformation, leaving Meredith uneasy. The story then shifts to 1891, where Léonie and her brother travel from Paris to stay with their Aunt Isolde at the Domaine de la Cade.

Mosse has introduced the 19th-century chapter thread centred on Léonie Vernier and the world around fin-de-siècle Paris and the Languedoc.

Instead of plunging quickly into overt historical mystery or occult incidents, the first 58 pages function as a slow ignition: character interiors, textures of landscape, the registering of names and places that the reader suspects will “echo” across timelines later.

Easy to read, with writing activities to start the creative writing process.

The author weaves new characters into the story and at times, you are left wondering how they are all fitting together. However, I’m enjoying the story so far. I’m really invested in the historical timeline more than the contemporary one at this point in the book.