Poet`s Cottage by Josephine Pennicott

Setting in an atmospheric Tasmania, this was a wonderfully engrossing tale that I was captivated by. Dark and chilling and full of twists and turns, secrets galore and characters that jump out of the page at you it was an amazing read.Going back and forth seamlessly between the present day and the 1930`s, the story is set in Pencubitt an imaginary Tasmanian fishing town. With its Gothic overtones and breath taking descriptions of time and place both past and present Pennicott has breathed new life into the annals of Tasmanian tales.
The author has done a great job of bringing to life fragments and snippets, bits of conversation, dialogue, myth and fantasy and weaving them into a interconnecting narrative, her fishing village will resonate with anyone who has ever been in one and the characters as I said previously jump out at you. They are well drawn and fit their situations perfectly, weather they be good, bad or indifferent, they are real and believable and  you will tend to either like or dislike them and even dislike is tempered with compassion for the times, places and circumstances they found themselves in.
There is a wonderful mystery at the core of this book, that slowly unravels with the telling and the ending of this book is perfect for the story. I particularly liked how all the puzzle pieces eventually fitted into place and how the story developed, the pace was well suited to the story, it never ran ahead of itself and the twists and turns and understandings played out with enough pull to keep you interested and wanting to keep reading until almost the end where I tried to slow myself so as not to actually finish the book.
To say much more would spoil it but to conclude it was an excellent read, the cover is beautiful and so appropriate and was what initially attracted me to the book, it is available at all good Book Shops and I very much look forward to this authors next outing! Oh, it also put me in mind to wish to visit Tasmania.