The Golden Hour

I read it in one day. It was so descriptive and beautiful, and also so fascinating, I loved how beautiful and descriptive the art and location were used. This author always makes me want to travel to the beautiful places that she writes about. Her other books usually take place in Vermont and Arizona, but this one took place in Maine. Without giving anything away, I enjoyed the fact that the main character Wyn was complex, and flawed, and sometimes even unlikeable. But she was real and that's refreshing, because usually the main character is somewhat one dimensional. There were parts of her that I really liked and other parts of her character I had empathy for. The storyline itself held my interest from beginning to end, I love getting into a book where you have to keep reading to find out what happens, and in this book there were two intertwining stories. A very good read!

T. Greenwood’s THE GOLDEN HOUR is a beautifully written novel that uses the art of painting as a metaphor for how we view the world around us, and how hard it is to see the truth. On one level, this is a mystery novel about a young woman attempting to escape a transformative event from her childhood. But on another, it’s a character study of a life falling apart. Thirty-three-year-old Wyn Davies was raped by a classmate when she was thirteen, and as the novel begins her rapist (who has been serving a life-sentence for the past twenty years) may be granted a new trial. It’s clear from the start that Wyn’s story of what happened to her all those years ago isn’t exactly the truth. She’s holding something back, and the possibility of having to testify in court during her rapist’s possible retrial terrifies her. What really happened in the woods behind her house when Wyn was thirteen? And how can she reconcile that truth with what’s happening to her life now? Her marriage is a mess, her bank account is rapidly dwindling, and her art – which was always the driving force in her life – has been reduced to painting trees for wealthy clients who want something to match the sofa cushions.

And art is central to THE GOLDEN HOUR. While the mystery of what happened to Wyn when she was thirteen isn’t particularly mysterious (the truth is clear early on), there is another mystery that permeates this novel. Wyn retreats to a friend’s ramshackle house on an island in Maine where she discovers a box of undeveloped 35mm film canisters. On a lark, she has two of the rolls developed and discovers amazingly evocative pictures. Who is the photographer, and why were the film canisters left undeveloped in a box labeled, “Epitaphs and Prophesies”? This mystery becomes a driving force for Wyn as she tries to keep her mind off her legal issues and her marriage. And little by little, she forms a connection with the enigmatic photographer, a link that will ultimately help her find her own way.

I loved reading this novel. Greenwood’s prose is lyrical and haunting, and Wyn’s story is gripping and real. I did, however, have a problem with some of the elements of the twenty-year-old rape case. First, it’s a bit difficult to believe that a thirteen-year-old rapist would be given a life sentence (especially when, in the same jurisdiction, a pedophile who repeatedly rapes his own daughter gets only five years). And Wyn’s refusal to cooperate with the prosecutors when she was thirteen should have made her case very difficult to win. She won’t tell them what happened (saying only, “I don’t remember” to most of their questions), and there’s little physical evidence. These things, while annoying, don’t really detract from the story itself, since this is Wyn’s story. And her story is less about what happened to her when she was thirteen than it is about how she’s living her life now, as an adult with a crumbling marriage and a young daughter to raise.

Bottom line, if you’re a fan of character-driven novels that delve deeply into the human psyche – and our very tenuous understanding of truth – you’ll love THE GOLDEN HOUR. I was engaged from the first page, and the ending – while it doesn’t exactly tie things up in a tidy bow – left me satisfied as to Wyn’s fate. The reader does find answers, just as Wyn does. And there is a sense that truth itself – like art – can be a saving grace. I highly recommend this novel.

I had never read anything by author Greenwood before this and by the time I was halfway through this book, I had ordered copies of all of her other books. This author has quite a talent with the written language.

In THE GOLDEN HOUR the protagonist is Wyn Davies. She is at a crossroads in her life. She lives in New Hampshire, has separated from her husband, has a 4 year-old daughter, and is an artist that feels like she's sold out because all she paints are decorative accessory wall paintings.

She is also going through a very traumatic time because memories of crimes against her when she was 13 years old are back to haunt her.

So when her best friend offers her the use of her newly acquired house on an island in Maine, she can't run away fast enough. But some things you just can't run away from.

I loved the word pictures that the author created. I could totally visualize the story as it progressed. And the characters were ordinary people with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies and I could relate to what was happening in the story.

My ONLY negative (and the reason I rated this 4 stars rather than 5) was the abrupt ending. I believe the author wrote it this way on purpose so the reader could imagine their own ending but I would have liked an epilogue or at least a firmer ending.

Now I just have to find the time to fit in the reading of the author's books because they all have great sounding blurbs giving hints about the stories.

The Golden Hour is a mystery within a mystery but very easy to understand. Wyn goes to Maine to live with her young daughter Avery where she can get back to her roots of being an artist plus she has doubts about her marriage to Gus and believes that time away will give her the clarity she needs to work out her life. The house where they will stay is on an Island and owned by her friend Pilar, also an artist, who also planned to live there and work as an artist herself. When Pilar is called away only after a days stay Wyn is disappointed but uses the time to paint and take car of her daughter. There is a huge mansion just beyond the trees from where Wyn is staying and she gets to know the neighbors a wealthy couple who bickers all the time. Add to this the discovery of many canisters of film found by Wyn in the basement and a retrial of a rapist that involves Wyn as a young teen and you can't go wrong with this novel.

3★
Wyn Davies is struggling with a lot of things, like a lot of artists, like a lot of young mothers, like a lot of victims of rape. Hello? What was that last one?

As a 13-yo girl, she took a shortcut through the woods and was attacked and raped. Her rather strange, 13-yo classmate was found guilty and has been in jail for the last 20 years, but now some do-gooder organisation has decided to lobby for a retrial and ask for DNA evidence.

Wyn freaks out. She’s a painter, as is Gus, her slightly estranged (but not strange) husband and father of their cute 4-yo daughter, Avery.

Wyn has limited herself to painting for her Etsy shop and craft fairs - ”quirky birches, the frazzled skittish sky. . . thick white branches, steady limbs . . . A painting you could just as easily hang in a child’s room as a dentist’s office. The kind of painting you buy to match your sofa or blinds.”

In other words (Gus’s words), she’s sold out for the income. He’s a signwriter by day but he paints his real stuff in his own time. She just doesn’t have an 'own' time. So they kind of split up, living in two halves of an old duplex, with Avery darting back and forth.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Pilar, is becoming an acclaimed painter, which is great, but then Pilar doesn’t have a family to support, does she?

When Wyn gets a threatening phone call about the past attack, that does it. She tells nobody, but she accepts Pilar’s offer to take a break and clear her head in an old ramshackle house Pilar owns on an island off the coast of Maine. She tells Gus she just wants to get away for a while, but he’s not happy about it, and both are obviously conflicted about the “break-up”.

She finally tells him about the possible retrial of her attacker, and he is furious and worried about her.

”He stooped down to my height, clutched my elbows in his hands.

And suddenly I was eighteen years old again, peering up into his sweet face, the black freckle below his eye making it impossible to do anything but love him.”

See? Conflicted.

She convinces him to let her take Avery, she visits her parents along the way, finds the ramshackle house in worse condition than Pilar remembered, and Avery suddenly starts wetting the bed. She discovers hidden rolls of film in the house, meets the strange couple next door, freaks out when she’s contacted again, and so it goes.

We see flashbacks to the incident intermittently between chapters of story, until finally the flashbacks and today merge at the end. The second story about the photographs seems unnecessary. Perhaps romance and chick lit fans will enjoy this more than I did.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted (so quotes may have changed).

I read this book in one sitting, I found it hard to put down, I liked that there were two stories, that somehow fit together. And I liked the husband/ wife relationship, and how that ended, I have read all of the authors books and each one has stayed with me in some way.

I enjoyed the author's style of writing because I could easily visualize the story being told.
Some of the story just didn't feel believable or likely to occur and those points that didn't fit or make sense caused me to reduce it from a five star review.
Plenty of drama in this story and struggles to deal with past experiences.
Most of us do eventually have to deal with something that occurred in our past, so it helps connect the reader to the story.
Traumatic events often affect people for many years and can damage their ability to trust and build relationships.
The woman who is the focus of this story is an example of this.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the book.

I love T Greenwood novels. However, I felt this wasn’t her best. I liked it enough to finish it, but it felt contrived/forced to me. Not as spellbinding as her books typically are. I still highly recommend the author though. If this is your first time reading her try Undressing the Moon or Where I Lost Her.

A novel featuring an emotionally damaged main character took me forever to finish and I cannot recommend it, as the story is as disturbing as the adult woman protagonist bringing on her own misery.....the added "bonus" of a child in tow. Definitely not for me!

Not her best but good.