Adeliza Golding is the much wanted child of Edwin and Evangeline Golding, born after 5 other miscarriages. She is born with extreme myopia and soon looses her sight to cataracts. When she is just two years old she contracts Scarlet Fever and is left deaf as a result. Her world is closed off. She comes to cherish the interaction with her father, misbehaving and lashing out in the hope that it is he who comes to calm her down. Other times it is Nanny who has less patience with the frustrated Liza. Meanwhile Liza’s mother has retreated to her bed and refuses to allow Liza to interact with her. One day Liza ‘escapes’ the confines of her nanny and runs amongst her father’s hops plants. Suddenly someone grabs her hand and repeatedly stokes a pattern in it. Surprised, confused and intrigued Liza allows herself to be led away. Soon her new friend Lottie replaces Nanny and opens up the world to Liza, introducing finger spelling to her, and with it a way to interact and live again. Lottie’s influence on Liza has a dramatic effect on the family. Her father can now communicate with her and her mother too. She soon emerges from her room and Liza can finally realise how loved she is. Lottie introduces Liza to her family and the outside world and allows Liza to become the determined, selfless, caring person she is. I picked this book up intrigued with the synopsis but not sure what to expect. I read the first few pages and was immediately drawn into the story. Rebecca Mascull has created a compelling character in Adeliza Golding and I didn’t want to stop reading until I found out how her life was going to develop. It was a pleasure to see the relationship between Liza and other members of her family grow, and to see that family grown beyond her immediate one to include Lottie and her family. Lottie was also a wonderful character, full of love and understanding and as the story develops we see how she has come to know finger spelling and see a little of the heart-ache that drives her. When Liza learns to communicate she not only opens the world to herself but also the Visitors. These visitors she learns to realise are spirits, trapped on earth. She learns to first keep these visitors a secret but then opens up to Lottie of their existence. In time as she discovers more about her own spirit she figures out how she can help the ones only she can see and hear. I loved the pace of this story, how we get to see Liza grow from a child to a young kind woman, who realises her own limitations but who is determined that her lack of senses will set her back in life. The story travels from Kent to Africa and I particularly liked that part of the story related to the Boer War. It is a beautifully rendered story of acceptance – acceptance of ourselves and others, acceptance of our gifts and limitations, of forgiveness and accepting that we can make more of our life than was originally deemed for us if we try. I highly recommend this book. It is part love story, saga, ghost story and historical fiction, a perfect amalgam. It is wonderful debut and I can’t recall reading a story quite like it. I eagerly await more from Rebecca Mascull.

Historical fiction - with ghosts. I've found that I have a love/hate relationship with ghosts in fiction. There are authors who are utterly convincing, I'm thinking Susan Hill and The Woman in Black here, and there have been times when I've taken a book and thrown it down in despair because the ghostly thing is just not happening for me. I often have the same problem with historical fiction, I struggle with unfamiliar language and often feel as though it is a barrier that stops me from immersing myself totally in the story. So, it was with some hesitancy that I decided to read The Visitors, but I was swayed by the fact that a few of my trusted blogger friends had read and enjoyed it, and by the cover. Oh that cover is so delicious, I'm a sucker for a lovely cover, I really am. The Visitors is the story of Adeliza (Liza) Golding, a young deaf-blind girl and is narrated in her voice. The reader accompanies Liza through her life, from the moment of her birth. Also accompanying Liza are the visitors; unseen, and only heard by Liza and a strange and quite odd presence throughout the story, yet it is Liza's visitors that for me, added another dimension to what is a well-constructed and quite unique story. Rebecca Mascull's characters are vivid and larger than life. The reader follows Liza as she grows and matures, not only in years, but also in confidence and capability. She has created a friendship between Liza and her friend Lottie that is endearing and enduring. The sense of place, as Liza and Lottie travel from England to the horrors of the Boer War portrayed in the letters received from Lottie's brother Caleb is incredible. Caleb himself is a flawed character, and I found it quite difficult to warm to him, although I thought his and Liza's developing relationship was carefully and sensitively written. The Visitors is not a long novel, but there is a lot packed into the 250 pages, and although it is clearly a work of fiction, I enjoyed learning about the development of sign language which has been researched very well. I enjoyed the story, the style of writing and the very different setting and themes in The Visitors, this is a very good debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Rebecca Mascull in the future.

Historical fiction - with ghosts. I've found that I have a love/hate relationship with ghosts in fiction. There are authors who are utterly convincing, I'm thinking Susan Hill and The Woman in Black here, and there have been times when I've taken a book and thrown it down in despair because the ghostly thing is just not happening for me. I often have the same problem with historical fiction, I struggle with unfamiliar language and often feel as though it is a barrier that stops me from immersing myself totally in the story. So, it was with some hesitancy that I decided to read The Visitors, but I was swayed by the fact that a few of my trusted blogger friends had read and enjoyed it, and by the cover. Oh that cover is so delicious, I'm a sucker for a lovely cover, I really am. The Visitors is the story of Adeliza (Liza) Golding, a young deaf-blind girl and is narrated in her voice. The reader accompanies Liza through her life, from the moment of her birth. Also accompanying Liza are the visitors; unseen, and only heard by Liza and a strange and quite odd presence throughout the story, yet it is Liza's visitors that for me, added another dimension to what is a well-constructed and quite unique story. Rebecca Mascull's characters are vivid and larger than life. The reader follows Liza as she grows and matures, not only in years, but also in confidence and capability. She has created a friendship between Liza and her friend Lottie that is endearing and enduring. The sense of place, as Liza and Lottie travel from England to the horrors of the Boer War portrayed in the letters received from Lottie's brother Caleb is incredible. Caleb himself is a flawed character, and I found it quite difficult to warm to him, although I thought his and Liza's developing relationship was carefully and sensitively written. The Visitors is not a long novel, but there is a lot packed into the 250 pages, and although it is clearly a work of fiction, I enjoyed learning about the development of sign language which has been researched very well. I enjoyed the story, the style of writing and the very different setting and themes in The Visitors, this is a very good debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Rebecca Mascull in the future.

The story opens with our main character, Adeliza (Liza) Golding and takes us from the moment she is born up to and throughout her adult life. After birth she describes seeing the visitors, which turn out to be ghosts although she doesn't cover too much detail here. We are then told about how she comes to be deaf and blind and how this affects her behavior as she is growing up. She is angry, aggressive and almost feral in her frustration and loneliness until she is 6 years old and a chance encounter with Lottie changes everything. Lottie teaches Liza how to communicate which impacts upon her quality of life and opens up a new world for her. The book is then focused upon her becoming an adult, the war and how this affects her life and relationships. The first part of this book moved me, if you have a family member or friend who is blind or deaf I think you may feel the same. Having someone who is so isolated and being helpless to do anything about it, I could appreciate how that must be for Liza's father although that isn't heavily featured in the book. How Lottie manages to change Liza's whole life, with patience and giving her the means to communicate was beautiful. Her experiences and how everything changes through having access to talk to others and seeing the character bloom was just wonderful. The next part focuses on her interactions as an adult, her character growth, war and the visitors. As a child she meets and is taken with Caleb, Lottie's twin brother. As war is coming he is caught up in that and writes home to Liza and Lottie about what he sees and experiences which takes the novel down a darker path. Whilst the letters gave a stark look at the horrors seen whilst out in the field during war and they were interesting, they were a world away from the style and theme of the beginning of the book. I think some readers may like this contrast however for me I would have preferred it to be delivered maybe in a different format? The ghost aspect is quite different, Liza isn't sure how she can see them when others cannot. What is the purpose to it, why her? Some questions are answered but not all and whilst this generally irks me when I am reading, I didn't mind the unanswered questions as you discovered answers along with Liza and accept her view point on it all, well I did. I think this is a well written debut novel and can't describe how, on a personal level, watching the beginning of a new world opening for Lottie warmed me. It was a delight to read and I don't think I have read anything like it before. This writer has so much more to share with the reading world and I hope she continues to write, I will certainly be looking for any new material from her, 4/5 for me this time.