I have loved all of Rowan Coleman's books; she has such a lovely style of writing. This wasn't an exception. It was right up my street – The Brontes, gothic elements, ghosts, romance – what's not to like? It was so convincing at times that I had to remind myself that it wasn't all true, I really wish that it was! I have added visiting Ponden Hall to my bucket list.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Darkly atmospheric, this is a ghost story with love at its heart. I'm not usually a fan of historical fiction but I love Rowen Coleman's previous books so I had to read it. There's a wonderful balance of contemporary and history, I liked that the letters told a first person perspective. A must read for fans of the Brontes, this is a beautiful story.

Fact merged into fiction this book is mesmerizing, drawing you into a story that is fascinating to say the least. Beautifully written it is a credit to the author that she has blended past with present and produced a best seller novel. 5 mega * and thanks to Netgalley and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

A stunning story that I feel in love with upon arrival at the rundown Ponden Hall.

Trudy has returned to her beloved childhood home recently widowed with her son Will after an estrangement from her Mother. I found this story beautifully creepy and enthralling. It mixes modern day with events that happened hundreds of years ago.

The ghosts trapped in the house have always spoken to Trudy and now they are leaving clues about events in the past.

This book has a dark and slightly gothic feel that made me want to just keep reading. It was a story of how the house had many stories to tell of loss and love over the years and through the generations of the Heatons.

As the past and present come colliding together the book keeps gaining momentum and I found more and more that I couldn't put the book down as was so keen to see what would happen to Ma, Trudy and Will.

A truly brilliant and memorable read with superb characters that you will love and hate in equal measures, this book made my spine tingle and I loved it!

This is a good yarn if you're prepared to suspend belief and don't mind plots with holes and unlikely outcomes.I was about to give up at one point after one more unlikely event,but I persevered and was quite glad I had .
It's a ghost story set in Ponden Hall in Yorkshire,a real house with links to the Brontes.Trudy returns there with her son when her husband disappears on an expedition to Peru,and from then on events take a sinister turn when she is haunted by the ghost of a woman who once lived there.
There are some quite creepy moments and the author does create a sinister atmosphere,although the characters and dialogue are not very believable.
However,it's an entertaining read all in all.

Love the Brontes?
Love spooky and slightly eerie mysteries then this is for you.
After her husband goes missing a young mum returns to her home and the mother she has left.
The house itself and the family that she has lost help her to find her way out of trouble.
Great

I wasn't sure whether this was going to be my kind of book or not as I am not into history. However this was a great mixture of olden and modern days and some real tales of woe.

Rowan Coleman pays homage to the Bronte family, in particular to Emily Bronte in this blend of fact and fiction novel set in the beautiful, wild, creepy and desolate Yorkshire moors, vividly reminiscent of Wuthering Heights. The tempestuous relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff and its inspiration is to be found in the history of the Heaton family living in ancient Ponden Hall, and their connection to Emily, a frequent visitor to its library, and with that famous box bed. Trudy Heaton grew up at Ponden Hall, bewitched, obsessed and enraptured by her close family ties with Emily and the Brontes, revelling in the literature and its romanticism. After a 16 year rift with her Ma, she has returned from London to the place where she truly belongs, with her son, Will, to introduce him to his family heritage and his maternal grandmother. Trudy and Will are burdened with trauma, and a heavy grief at the loss of Trudy's true love, soulmate, and husband, Abe. Abe, who is presumed dead after a plane accident in the Peruvian Jungle.

Ponden Hall heaves with its secret family histories, and the other spirits it holds within its walls. Trudy's Ma may have lived as its only solitary human soul through the years, as it crumbled around her, but her companions have been other souls from Ponden Hall's past. In a haunting narrative, Trudy feels the ghostly spirits of her cursed family history, the desolation, despair and tragedy, the parallel grief, the cruelty, the evil, the unbearable loss and love. Her son, Will, is not immune to the spooky atmosphere either, nor left untouched by its ghosts. Trudy inadvertently stumbles across a hidden treasure of documents that connect Emily Bronte with the life story of the lowly Agnes, two women separated by two centuries. Energised by her valuable historic find, Trudy rises above her grief in search of a greater prize from her heroine, Emily, whilst Will's unshakeable conviction that his father is still alive rekindles her desire to do all that she can to discover Abe's fate.

This has been a tough book for me to review, for whilst there are so many elements that I loved about it, I felt it did have some major flaws that prevented it from being what would otherwise have been an easy 5 star read. It needed to be more tightly plotted, the narrative could have been better edited to prevent it from meandering from time to time and the characterisation could have been improved to be a trifle sharper. None of this should detract from this wonderful book, a particular highlight for me was seeing Trudy's relationship with her Ma develop. As it turns out, it soon becomes clear that the father Trudy had been besotted with was not the man she thought he was, and the mother she hated is not the woman she thought. A novel that I adored so many aspects of, and which is likely to appeal to many Bronte fans. Many thanks to Random House Ebury for an ARC.

3.5*

I was unsure about it as the start was rather unpromising. How many books like this are out there?And how many have I read? Well in short: countless and too many. And then the writing style didn't do much for me either. It felt as if the book was constantly battling if to be a Gothic novel or just a contemporary mystery novel. It could have been a great Gothic novel, but the constant battle between maintaining a lucid, logic approach to what was happening for then to just pick and choose when to accept there are non-material presences or when to anchor the events in reality just broke the entire atmosphere of the book. On top of all that, both subplots are lacking something: one enough tension(Marcus) and the other credibility(her husband).
But, but...the story really grew on me and by the end of the book I've been emotionally invested.

Thank you

After having read Rowans previous novel, The Summer of Impossible Things, I was eager to read this. I found myself loving it just as much! This book has it all, mystery, tension, history, love and rolling scenaries.

This is not a conventional love story and I loved its twists and turns.

In the first few chapters we're introduced to Trudy and her son Will.  Trudy takes her son back to her childhood home to heal after the loss of her husband. Will keeps saying that his father isn't dead. And they didn't find a body. 

I loved this book.When I started reading I didn't want to stop. Straight away I liked and cared about Trudy and her son and I loved Ponden Hall. The house had a gothic presence but it wasn't a malignant one, at least not to the Heaton's who had lived there for generations. I couldn't stop reading to follow Trudy's search as she unravelled the mystery of Agnes who many years ago lived in Ponden Hall. 

I loved that Emily Bronte visited there in the past and the box bed in one of the rooms was the inspiration for Cathy's in Wuthering Heights. I'm a lover of classic books and of course Wuthering Heights and this book feels like a homage to the Brontes and especially Wuthering Heights. The story is not the same but it has a similar gothic atmosphere. I feel like this book was written especially for me and for readers like me.

If you love gothic, literary fiction with a historical mystery like I do this book is perfect. I only regret reading it so quickly because it was so good. I wish I could've savoured it, but it was hard to stop reading. 

I don't think the synopsis does this book justice and I don't know if I can express how much I enjoyed it. 

Have I found another favourite author?

The Girl at the Window is a wonderful book about an ancient ancestral home called Ponden Hall,ghosts,the past and the present and ultimately love .Trudy Heaton goes back with her son to her Mum and Ponden Hall when her husband goes missing presumed dead after a plane crash in Peru .Trudy grew up at Ponden Hall but left after a falling out with her Mum ,now she is trying to rebuild her relationship and the house itself which seems to be full of mystery and magic .I really enjoyed this book ,so different to others I have read .Many thanks to the Publisher the Author and NetGalley for my review copy in return for an honest review .

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK, for the review copy. This is an unbiased review of the author's work and style. If you want plot lines and spoilers please see the publishers blurb and other reviewers' reports.
Normally I do not go for modern romantic fiction but I was drawn to read this because of the promise of a historic mystery tied to the Bronte’s. The author has certainly packed it with a multiplicity of twists and turns and her style is very complex but I have to say not for me.
I wanted to urge her to get a move on so I could find out why I was reading this impressively fat novel. I did get to the end, my quest was answered but it did not leave a lasting impression.
I have awarded it 4 stars because the writing is good and it would be unfair to mark it down because it didn't suit me. I am sure there will be many copies of this to be seen in cafes and beaches throughout the summer and others will thoroughly enjoy it also, I do wish the author well.

I have always loved Rowena books, after all it was going to the book launch if her novel ‘The Memory Book’ that made me want to be a book blogger.
I loved this book and give it 9/10

The Girl at the Window has an intriguing premise for readers who love romance in old manors, haunted houses, countryside...and the Brontes.

But it wasn't for me.

I am not exactly against any of the above mentioned, and nor am I a reader who will love it just because of those things. I think Rowan Coleman slightly overdid the Bronte cliches and delivered a story that felt otherwise unreliable.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book.
It's a mixture of fact... the setting, some of the characters and some legend - and fiction; the actual story.
Set in the current day (and in a building which you can actually stay in add it is now a B&B) in Emily Brontë's Yorkshire. The story tells of Tru and Abe's love and her devastation after he is lost while song mercy work in Peru. Tru and her son Will go back to Polden Hall, her family home, and are reconciled with her mother. We travel through the history of Polden Hall and the loss of its famous library - used by Emily Brontë and her sisters.
There is a love story from the 17 th century running through the background. A story of love, injustice, loss and murder. A fantastic story but credible in the book. A story about Emily Brontë and a lost manuscript, a supposed love affair for Emily and also the current day events very successfully wound together.
I loved the book and enjoyed the historical aspects too. A well told story, well researched and told. I'll look out for more by Rowen Column.

'I've been the only living soul in this house for a very long time' Ma says, turning her hollow gaze to meet mine. 'But not the only soul'

I went into this book totally blind, by the title I was expecting a Girl or a train, a girl with a tattoo or a girl simply gone type book but oh how wrong I was.

This book is just gorgeous, there is literally no other word for it, which is weird as I would put it under the horror genre, it's dark, its creepy, but its utterly gorgeous.

This book is centered around Ponden Hall, a very real place, a place the Brönte siblings spent a lot of time back in the day, a place that inspired Emily's wuthering heights, the place of the famous box bed. Emily features heavily in this story, a story seamlessly woven of fact and fiction spanning over hundreds of years.

'And if he treats books this way, god knows how he treats the people in his life'

This book features everything on my five star hit list, ghosts, historical facts, legends, libraries, thunder, hope, adorable characters, all woven together in fiction. I felt so many things reading this, it's just indescribable.

If you're wondering what to read this summer, pick this book, amongst all the thunder filled pages is the most gorgeous plot.

Please dont be put off by the title, it really is daffodils on a rainy day.

A young widow takes her son back to the home she turned her back on years ago – a crumbling gothic manor on the Yorkshire moors, very close to Haworth, populated with ghosts, where she must repair both her relationship with her mother and the fabric of the building. That leads her to a mystery rooted deep in the history of the house and the story of one of the writer daughters of Haworth.

There are stories to be told in the present, in the recent past, and much further back.

There is a lot going on -maybe too much - but rarely do books have so many interesting ingredients.

There were moments when the story was too easy to predict and when the story became too unlikely, but it worked.

The atmosphere was wonderful, the emotions in the human story were very well done, and my attention was held from the first page to the last.

This book is different to what I would normally read. It’s a mix of romance, history and paranormal Fans of Emily Bronte will love it. There were some parts I enjoyed more than others. I didn’t dislike it but sadly not one of my favourite reads

This is a real slow-burner of a novel – I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it at first but as the chilling time-slips started and the plot gradually became darker and more gothic I became completely hooked and spent several late nights being drawn into its thrall.

Not knowing the real life background of Ponden Hall I was slightly puzzled when Emily Bronte made an appearance in the story, but in the end she played an integral and very believable part in the mystery of the house and the people who lived and died there. It was very interesting to read the author’s notes at the end - I am planning a pilgrimage to Haworth Parsonage sometime soon and will definitely make a detour to see the Hall.

All in all an enjoyable ghostly gothic mystery. Many thanks to the Ebury Press, to Rowan Coleman and to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this terrific novel.