The House of Echoes
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley January 30, 2025
Author Alexandra Walsh
Distributor: Amazon UK
ISBN: 9781804159651
Publisher: Boldwood Publishing
Release Date: January 2025
YouTube:
Instagram:
X Formally Twitter: https://x.com/purplemermaid25/status/1868615263224246623
Anne Brandon, Baroness Grey of Powis, was a woman who was included in the Court circles, witnessed much of the tragedy of times and was a friend or close acquaintance of the women King Henry made his Queens, only to later dispose of them when another enticed him.
The House of Echoes from Alexandra Walsh is set between the modern day and the Tudor Court of 1509 to 1547 as Anne Brandon grows from a young woman, married into a terrible marriage, later to live openly with the love of her life Randall Hanworth, until the death of her husband Edward Grey, Baron of Powis.
Caroline Harvey is the public face of world famous, reclusive author Dexter Blake, the creator of the Ether Hercules series. She is returning to England at the completion of the filming of the eight book in the series, saddened as her grandfather would no longer be with her, but ready to launch the ninth and final book in the series.
Returning to her home, Dexter’s Place in Pembrokeshire she is sorely missing her grandfather, but when she discovers there is to be a new bookstore opening at the Milford Marina complex she is delighted. It is part of a chain Ten to Midnight, which is owned by Gideon Morris a man she fell in love with as a young woman on the brink of adulthood.
Both women have in the course of their life been left bereft, both women have had to face and overcome hatred, both women have loved deeply and irrevocably. Woven though the dual narrative is the timeless, medieval story of Tristan and Iseult (Isolde) which tells the tale of illicit love and tragedy which still, centuries later, resonates.
Alexandra Walsh has carefully researched the historic content and uses the house Anne Brandon and Randall Hanworth called home as the modern, Dexter’s Place which ties the two stories together and in doing so, tells the story of so many of the women, influential and otherwise, whose stories call down through history, still untold.
The House of Echoes is an excellent read with an informative section at the end of the book on the story of Anne Brandon and the history of the Tudor Court of King Henry VIII, which for those not familiar with this tumultuous time in history, will be very helpful.