The Storyteller’s Daughter
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley January 14, 2025
Author Victoria Scott
Distributor: Amazon UK
ISBN: 978-1835617014
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Release Date: January 2025
Website: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storytellers-Daughter-gorgeously-evocative-historical/dp/1835617018
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Victoria Scott, in The Storyteller’s Daughter, uses the time old tragedy of a family divided through inflexibility and social standing which is in so many ways, timeless, to weave a captivating story over the dual timeline of 1940 and 2008.
Nita Bineham was bought up to be a woman of standing, breeding and a society hostess, all of which she hated. Given a chance to work at the local newspaper, The Bugle, she grasps the opportunity, even though she discovers she is to be a receptionist, not a budding journalist; a desire she holds dear.
Only days after she commences her new job, there are serious rumours there is a German spy living somewhere in the vicinity of Melham Village. An opportunity occurs where she can help Joe, the junior reporter, cover the story. She decides and is determined that she will help him find this person, no matter what.
2008 sees her niece Beth arriving in Melham on the eve of Nita’s passing. The family home is bitterly cold, the place in need of considerable maintenance and the guilt Beth is carrying relating to so much of her disaster of a life, is crippling.
Her Aunts final words to her, along with the closing of her Estate and the House, into which she has been coerced by her parents, gives her the chance to remain in a place she loved as a child for a few more days, and put her everyday life on hold.
As she searches through the attic for a particular box of papers she begins to realise there was far more to her beloved Aunt than a somewhat eccentric, reclusive woman. Secrets which were buried deep, are being bought into the light of a new world and those secrets, will change her and her families lives forever.
Many layers, along with carefully developed characters, make up this riveting and entertaining story as the past moves steadily into the future, bringing with it long overdue endings and beginnings.