A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner

★★★★★
Read the first chapter of
A Sound Among the Trees here.
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A house shrouded in time. A line of women with a heritage of loss.

As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn’t believe that Susannah’s ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.

When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband’s home, it isn’t long before she is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there.

With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak – and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.

I did enjoy reading this tale of regrets and redemption. Though the story began a bit slowly, I have always been a sucker for historical fiction – and Meissner does a beautiful job of connecting the past with the present. I do wish that Susannah’s letters – which Marielle reads towards the end of the novel – had been more interspersed throughout the novel, integrated with the story of Holly Oak’s present women, rather than all in the same section. I enjoy more back-and-forth between past and present. Despite this, A Sound Among the Trees still left me satisfied in the end and I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a bit of historical fiction and intrigue.