The glass house

Disappointed artist Antonia McCulloch is going through the motions with her distant husband when her previously unknown sister-in-law and niece unexpectedly arrive on her doorstep. Antonia has been managing Balmarra, the family estate, since her father's death, and never expected to hear from her estranged brother again. Cicely Pick has packed herself and her daughter Kitty up to travel from Darjeeling, India to Scotland in pursuit of her husband's right to the family home. He's in need of financial support, and she intends to sell Balmarra and the assets therein to fund his continued botanical expeditions in Asia. As Antonia and Cicely become acquainted, their mutual suspicions give way to tentative friendship. Cicely is a novel addition to village society and strikes up an ill-advised flirtation with a wealthy neighbor. Neither of the women's husbands seems invested in the future of the estate, and all fail to anticipate what they eventually learn from the family solicitors. Balmarra itself is another character in the story, filled with family treasures and portraits, with a spectacular glass house on the grounds containing rare plant specimens from all over the world. Offer this to fans of historical fiction, women's stories, and Scotland.

Late Scottish writer Colin (To Capture What We Cannot Keep) highlights bonds between women in this alluring tale. In the summer of 1912, Cicely Pick and her eight-year-old daughter, Kitty, travel from their home in Darjeeling, India, to Balmarra House, near the village of Cove in Scotland, to visit Antonia, the sister of Cicely's botanist husband George. Cicely has been tasked by George with confirming George's inheritance of Balmarra. Though Antonia had no prior notice of her sister-in-law's arrival and her husband voices his uncertainty that Cicely is George's wife, Antonia warms to Cicely until she discovers Cicely's purpose in coming to Balmarra is to claim the estate for her own family and sell it out from under Antonia. When Cicely becomes ill, Antonia cares for Kitty and helps enroll her in school. Meanwhile, Cicely considers staying in Scotland, as her marriage to George has been soured by his infidelity and his fruitless botanical expeditions. Colin's lyrical depictions of early-20th-century India and Scotland provide an immersive view of the characters' experiences, particularly in Cicely's view of damp, dank Glasgow after arriving from India ("The city smelled of coffee grounds underlined by the faint whiff of drains"), and family secrets add to the intrigue over the inheritance of Balmarra. Colin's final work is a fine achievement. (Sept.)

At the turn of the 20th century, the stultified equilibrium in a Scottish manor is thrown out of kilter when a "stranger" appears at the door in Colin's posthumously published novel. Antonia McCulloch, the apparent heiress to Balmarra House--her father's expansive estate in the west of Scotland--lives a quiet life there with her barrister husband, Malcolm, and a dwindling staff of household help. The once-grand manor of Edward Pick, who made his fortune in tobacco and sugar and was an avid amateur horticulturalist, Balmarra has fallen into disrepair since his death but for the spectacular glass house (a greenhouse to Americans) that is the property's, and the novel's, centerpiece. Antonia's only sibling, George, decamped years before for a life of trekking and botanical exploration in India, heightening Antonia's resentment at the strictures put upon her: a lack of higher education, a thwarted artistic career, and a dreary routine of domesticity. When George's beautiful and enigmatic wife, Cicely, and young daughter, Kitty, arrive from Darjeeling for an unannounced stay at Balmarra, Antonia's frumpish existence is challenged, as is her understanding of her family's history, during the ensuing competition for the estate's ownership. Cicely's mixed racial heritage becomes the basis of gossip and discussion among other local landowners and, ultimately, becomes the sympathetically handled focus of a crucial point in Colin's jam-packed, Byzantine storyline. Descriptions of the world beyond Balmarra, including lush Eastern landscapes and the rare subjects of botanical quests and obsessions, are complemented by eloquent descriptions of the beauty of the Scottish countryside and coastline (and contrast with the inhumanity that is the source of ugliness and misunderstanding). Colin's meandering tale has room for surprises, suspense, and soul-searching in its journey toward a cinematic conclusion. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.