Two women centuries apart share more than just their gender. They both lived in a gilded cage not of their choosing. Hannah was financially subordinate to her husband, Isabella in service to her faith. Author Lauren Belfer brings the two women together in a thrilling mystery novel titled Ashton Hall.
Hannah and her nine-year-old adventurous son, Nicky, are set to spend the summer holiday in a manor house just outside Cambridge, England. The vacation is a gift financed by Hannah’s beloved uncle who must leave for Sloan Kettering to receive treatment for his “nasties,” an aggressive cancer.
Hannah’s thrilled to escape New York for various reasons. Nicky would enjoy the countryside, its bucolic surroundings may perhaps calm his volatile behavior. Nicky has been diagnosed with “neurodiversity,” a form of autism. Hannah has been Nicki’s strongest supporter, avoiding institutionalizing him whose bouts of rage have all but deleted Hannah’s social life. Totally devoted to her son, Hannah put aside completing her Ph.D. dissertation and eclipsed her career to care for him. Additionally, her reason to escape New York is the discovery of her husband’s infidelity--- with another man.
Belfer transports us to Tudor England inside “a red brick extravaganza of turrets chimneys and Flemish gables” a house that dates back to the 16th century. Open to the public, the stately home contains a visitors’ center, a bookshop and a resident research librarian, Dr. Martha Tinsley. Mrs. Gardner the house keeper and Alice her daughter become Nicky’s guardians.
Nicky loves to solve puzzles. What puzzles him is a “jib door” a secret entrance covered by wallpaper. A slight nudge allows him to enter a dark room, the windows inside bricked over. Entering the room, he sees a spinning wheel, a sketchbook, a candelabra, a prie-dieu-- a prayer chair. On the ground, he finds a skeleton with “long reddish hair.” An archeologist and a forensic anthropologist provide context to Nicky’s shocking discovery. They determine the skeleton is what remains of thirty-five-year-old Isabella Cresham, a Catholic woman who died in 1594. Was this room Isabella’s prison? Who placed her there? And why? Did she die of “pestilence” a contagious plague that killed thousands?
As Hannah becomes invested in unravelling the mystery, she begins to relate it to her own imprisonment in the 21st century. Kevin, Hannah’s husband a powerful Manhattan lawyer, on whom she is financially dependent, threatens to take custody of their son, Nicky if Hannah dares to initiate divorce proceedings. That action would seriously compromise Kevin’s career. Feeling helpless with divorce option off the table Hannah identifies with Isabella’s plight tethered to circumstances beyond her control. Will Hannah find the courage to unshackle from her imprisonment? Did Isabella Cresham determine her own fate? Evidence strongly points otherwise.
Unpredictable, never boring, a stunning conclusion that speaks to the choices women had then and now.
