ASHTON HALL

A woman’s attempts to uncover an archaeological mystery lead to a bigger discovery: herself.

Hannah Larson and her 9-year-old son, Nicky, have packed up their Upper West Side bags and moved into Ashton Hall, a stately manor near Cambridge, England. They were intending to keep Christopher, Hannah’s honorary uncle, company while he undergoes cancer treatment, but unbeknownst to Hannah, he has made other plans to get care in New York City. Thus Hannah has Christopher’s apartment to herself, as well as the time and space to work on her long-put-aside dissertation and to contemplate her husband’s betrayals. That is until Nicky, a quirky child with troubling outbursts of violence, makes a shocking discovery: Hidden away in an enclosed room in the walls of Ashton Hall is a redheaded skeleton. A team of archaeologists descend on the manor to learn more about the skeleton, whom they discover lived in the 1500s and is named Isabella Cresham: “Isabella Cresham has never been a ghost, haunting us,” one of the manor's other residents says to Hannah. “Tells you something about ghosts. If you don’t fear their presence, they leave you alone. We’ll see if she starts haunting us now.” Hannah, clearly haunted from the moment she lays eyes on Isabella, begins to see parallels between their lives as she deals with the nagging question: Did Isabella choose this life, or was she locked away? Hannah pours over Isabella’s sketchbooks and letters, piecing together Isabella’s life while interweaving her own anxieties and dreams into Isabella’s story. The first third of the book drags, and somehow the discovery of a skeleton in a hidden room is the least compelling part of the entire novel. That said, its strength comes from the archaeological details (did you know that the pigment that creates red hair is the slowest to break down?) as well as the grace and attention given to both Hannah and Isabella—two women separated by hundreds of years but bound by a common humanity.

A touching story about the themes that resonate through centuries.