An lonely orphaned 11 year old, his reclusive artist aunt and the mystery surrounding a family who vanished from a small South Carolina island fifty years earlier are the foundation of Gail Godwin’s GRIEF COTTAGE.

Godwin has crafted a narrative that provides a sort of oral memoir told in a consistent voice as it examines the complexity of family relationships and one boy’s way of coping with the death of his mother.

Part ghost story, part character study and part a study of coming to terms with what life throws at us, this is a book that provides plenty of food for thought.

I'm usually not a fan of 'coming of age' stories of boys but this is an exception. Marcus is an exceptional boy and his story is one that could have come across as terribly sad and overly sentimental. True, some of his story IS sad, but he's also blessed with a good upbringing by his Mother and a great-aunt who really cares about him though she can't show it.

The author does a good job with the subject of the ghost boy - - leaving it to the reader to interpret whether Marcus really saw a ghost or if he just imagined it because of his emotional circumstances. I like to think Marcus DID see the ghost and was led to the cubicle so the boy's bones could be found and his spirit finally laid to rest.

This was an enjoyable and well-written book suitable for all ages. How nice to be able to read an interesting story with vivid characters and a satisfying conclusion.

I absolutely loved this story! A young boy is sent to live with an aunt, who is all but a stranger, after the death of his parents. This could have been one of those stories where the aunt is a horrid woman who locks him in a closet and feeds him bugs BUT the aunt is very realistic. All of the characters in the story are well drawn, in fact. Marcus, the boy who lost his parents, befriends a ghost boy dwelling in a cottage near his new home. This is the most awesome kind of ghost story, one I highly recommend.

Eleven-year-old Marcus has just lost his mother (and only family member) to a freak car accident. He is taken from everything he knows and is sent to live with his great aunt Charlotte on a small island in South Carolina. Charlotte, whom Marcus had never met, is a reclusive painter with an unusual past. Estranged from her family at a young age, Charlotte has carved out a quiet, private life for herself – and the arrival of Marcus changes everything.

Marcus was very close to his mother before she died, but life wasn’t perfect then either. The two lived in poverty, and Marcus was involved in an incident at school in which his best friend was badly injured. Although he is devastated over the loss of his mother, Marcus is ready to start over on the island. When Charlotte introduces him to the partially-collapsed cottage at the end of the beach that inspired her to become a painter, Marcus becomes obsessed with the ruins known locally as Grief Cottage. It was destroyed by a mysterious fire during a hurricane fifty years before – a boy and his parents had been renting the cottage at the time, and they disappeared in the storm. Their bodies were never found.

Marcus begins visiting the cottage daily, and he forges an unusual connection with the spirit of the missing boy. As his curiosity builds, so does his courage – Marcus opens himself to the spirit world, and he finds himself wanting to please the ghost so that he will show himself. There is an element of darkness that hovers over Marcus and the cottage, an inevitable sense that we will soon find out whether the spirit is benevolent or not.

Meanwhile, Aunt Charlotte is succumbing to her own demons – after a bad fall, she is unable to paint and begins to go stir crazy in her unused studio. In the past, Charlotte has used painting to suppress her feelings about her abusive past, and now it has all come to the surface. She starts drinking more than usual, hiding herself in her studio and leaving Marcus to fend for himself. The relationship between aunt and nephew is really beautiful – despite their vast age difference, they both crave the care and affection of the other, but find it difficult to let go of their independence. Their cohabitation is comfortable and relaxed, despite the shadows hovering over them.

Grief Cottage is not a ghost story as much as it is an exploration of grief, and the many different ways that people cope with loss. Marcus learns at a young age that death is inevitable, and that it is important to make connections with each other while we have the chance. The strong relationships and incredibly real characters are highlighted by the atmospheric setting – steamy summer days and a misty, uncertain presence hovering over it all. Godwin has created memorable, meaningful characters that will live beyond the novel for a long time, and I will be looking for more of her novels in the future.

I received this book from Bloomsbury and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In Grief Cottage author Gail Godwin describes a place: an abandoned decaying cottage on the edge of an island, but Grief Cottage also has a non-literal presence in the minds of more than one emotionally troubled character. This is the coming of age story of eleven-year-old Marcus, who following the accidental death of his mother, bounces briefly into the foster system before being sent to live with his Aunt Charlotte on a small South Carolina island. Aunt Charlotte is an artist, used to a solitary life, and Marcus, concerned about being underfoot, quickly becomes fixated on the story of a boy about his age who drowned along with his family, tourists staying at Grief Cottage, in a hurricane fifty years earlier.

Marcus never knew his father, and his identity, if it’s known, is shrouded in mystery. Gradually Marcus’s history unfolds; it’s a life spent in poverty with Marcus and his mother eking out a living, and Marcus, unable to understand his mother’s sacrifices and concerns, instead feels ashamed of her and their living conditions. Once Marcus’s anguish erupted in rage, and the incident that led to a rapid move, but now the rage is buried and wrapped with guilt and grief.

Aunt Charlotte battles her own demons, and while she makes a good living with painting, she also struggles with her past. It’s not too long before it’s obvious that Aunt Charlotte is an alcoholic, but of course, Marcus doesn’t understand this, and after Aunt Charlotte suffers a fall during a binge, he’s proud to be able to open several wine bottles at once.

Since this is a coming of age story, most of the plot concerns Marcus. Left to his own devices, he’s both fascinated and repelled by Grief Cottage, a picturesque but ramshackle dwelling near the shore. Here, Marcus feels the presence of a ghost, the boy who went missing in the hurricane:

I don’t know how long I sat with my back to the door before I felt a change in the air that caused me to tense up. The tension was close to fear, but not the usual kind of fear. This was a brand-new sensation. The longer I sat there straining to stay alert, the stronger the sensation became, until it felt like something was coming closer. Then something made me stand up, as though I was being challenged to show more of myself.

As Marcus punctures the membrane between the living and the dead, this becomes a story of how we deal with death, dying and grief. This is a languorous melancholy tale, beautifully told with an emphasis on the damage we endure and the fragility of life (underscored by the survival struggles of the loggerhead turtles). Over the course of one summer, Marcus explores the island, connecting with various locals, occasionally constructing relationships in his hunger for a father. Marcus is an interesting child: solitary and thoughtful–although occasionally this thoughtfulness strains credulity even given that this is a tale told in retrospect.

Review copy

Grief Cottage is a story about just that and more. There is, in fact, a ruined cottage that has been so-named by the local residents because of its condition and lives lost there during Hurricane Hazel 50 years ago. But this cottage seems to also reflect, or perhaps embody, various stages of life's grief lived by some residents of nearby dwellings. The most obvious is Marcus. The tale initially combines this smart eleven year old boy boy, recovering from the loss of his mother and having a somewhat troubled past, with a great aunt who has lived for years as a loner...not totally anti-social, but set in her ways. Both are feeling the other out to find the true lay of the land in this South Carolina seashore cottage. The boy seems intelligent beyond his years, perhaps from time always with adults.

This is a different book, life seen through the eyes of an eleven year old boy who has lost his only anchor to the world. Basically he is a good boy, but confused by loss, emotion and his new place in the universe, living with his only relative, an Aunt (great aunt at that) who seems ambiguous about his presence. This is Aunt Charlotte who takes him in at her beach cottage. She is a different kind of solitary, a woman with her own emotional issues that haven't been resolved. The book is their relationship....and more.

Is this a ghost story? What did Marcus experience in Grief Cottage? Answers might vary with readers. I appreciate how Godwin handled the story. And I really liked the secondary characters as they became new parts of Marcus' life--including the turtles! At times I wondered about Marcus' voice/thoughts relative to his age but, by the end of the book, I believed.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review

A story about a boy who lost his mom obsessed about a boy who lost his life. When his mom dies, Marcus is sent to live with his closest living relative. A great aunt who lives in a small island in South Carolina. On his first day there he learns about Grief Cottage, the site of a terrible tragedy where a family lost its life during a hurricane.

The book is reminiscent of A Monster Calls, in which a young man must face his demons by conjuring metaphorical ones. It is a gripping book that pulls the reader in and makes it hard to resist.

Eleven year old Marcus has lost his mother, the only family he has ever known. Sent off to live with a great-aunt he’s never met on a small South Carolina island, to say he’s undergone some changes is an understatement. His aunt moved there to escape a past she doesn’t discuss and a family she scarcely mentions. She is an artist, specializing in island scenery and it has provided for her for a number of years. One of her most famous subjects is “Grief Cottage” a cottage that hosted tragedy 50 years before. Since then it’s been the subject of gossip and speculation and Marcus feels drawn there. While trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, he finds a sort of life amongst the sand.

"For me it was a time of flat days and anxious thoughts. The sun rose later and set earlier. It was as if the summer knew that its best days were gone and was giving in without a fight."

Godwin’s masterful writing made up for any slow periods in the novel, I could always find a sentence or phrase that spoke to me. As Marcus struggles to process his loss and comprehend a grief he’s never known, his internal monologue bares all.

"She said maybe it had been selfish to bring me into the world when she had so little to offer, but nevertheless she had wanted me more than anything in her whole life. She said I was her great prize."

Though his mom is gone when the story begins, I felt as if she could have been any other the mothers I’ve ever known. His sorrow is palpable, I just wanted to reach through the pages and hug him.

"Well, you did die. I waited for you to come back and you didn’t. Whereas I’m still here, coming loose from my moorings, getting ready to fly apart."

Slow-moving and atmospheric, journey with Marcus as he processes what his life has become and solves a mystery or two at the same time. Pick it up for the plot, finish it for the writing.

"Sit Tibi Terra Levis-May the earth lie lightly upon thee."

4 stars.

A haunting read full of beautiful words and a protagonist that you cannot help but fall in love with. The setting is mysterious and lovely, almost fantastical in a way in that it doesn't seem quite real. In fact, that was the sense that I got from the entire book in general, a feeling of semi-real, that line between dreaming and awareness where you know you are awake but everything feels far away. So much of this book happens within the head of the protagonist, letting the reader question the truth behind what he sees or feels. As a reader, I enjoy that uncertainty.

I came into the book having read some of the criticism about the protagonist seeming much too mature for eleven years old and I disagree with those comments. Marcus is one of those children who grows up too early too fast, who is intelligent from the beginning and curious about the reality of life. Having been, I think, something like that myself, I appreciate that he is as complex and rich a character as any adult. Sometimes fiction dumbs down children and ignores the richness of their imaginations but Godwin excels at showcasing this in her main character.

A really lovely read that I would recommend to literature fans or those who enjoy coming-of-age stories tinged with tragedy. The writing is so well done that I imagine Godwin's other novels are also enjoyable and I plan to find out for myself.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Bloomsbury, and the author Gail Godwin for the opportunity to do so.

This novel is PERFECT. I'm so glad I was off today because from page 1 I was hooked and COULD NOT STOP READING. All the questions I kept asking as I read were subtly answered, so it's the most satisfying read in a long, long time. I really enjoyed "living" with all the characters: good, evil, eccentric, the gamut. Now I'm just sad to have finished. I'm recommending to everyone! P. S. - The title is a bit unfortunate - I mean it sounds like a nursing home, but there is so much intelligent humor in this book. I don't know when I've read better dialogue. And - it's set on the beach, so it's like a vacay...I want to say so much about it, but I don't want to spoil it. Don't even read the jacket blurbs. Just read the book!!!

This was one of those books I could not put down. The story of this young boy is so poignant, as he conjures up this ghost friend. The author explores how we differ in how we cope with grief and the ending is a surprise.

Let's face it. No matter what anyone else says about a book, whether it's a reviewer, a teacher, or even the author, for the most part, by the very nature of the intimate experience that reading is, the person reading the book is sole judge and jury of what the story means to them. I loved that Gail Godwin in her note which begins "Dear Reader" and ends with "I'll let you be the judge", leaves it up to us whether we think it is a ghost story or not.

Eleven year old Marcus Harshaw believes he's seen a ghost, the ghost of a young boy who died in Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and lived in what is now called Grief Cottage. He has come to live with his mother's recluse Aunt Charlotte in South Carolina after his mother dies in a car accident. I love child narrators and Marcus is as precocious as they come - observant, smart, sensitive in ways older than his eleven years. It's sometimes hard to believe he's eleven. At first, I didn't detect his grief when he talks about his mother's death and his time in a foster home . It wasn't until he comes to live with Aunt Charlotte that it becomes so clear how much he is grieving . My heart ached when he sees a mother and a toddler on the beach and he says " it wrenched my heart." There were times when I was reminded of Theo in The Goldfinch who was as full of sadness, impressionable and vulnerable as Marcus. Even before Marcus comes to the island and discovers the Grief Cottage, he's had a hard time in his young life trying to fit in, never knowing his father, and although he has a loving relationship with his mother, they seem to be eking out an existence barely making ends meet. His mother is always with him , not the ghost he sees, but his memories of her - what she would have said or done guiding him as he goes along.

This is somewhat of a slow read as the plot line is not full of action and I won't give details here. However, I found this to be beautifully written , as you might expect from Godwin and full of characters that I loved . My favorite is Lachicotte, friend of Aunt Charlotte who always knows what to do . I loved Coral the ninety five year old neighbor grieving the loss of her son and befriending Marcus and yes Aunt Charlotte who in spite of her drinking and grief over a horrible childhood, loves and cares for Marcus. So is it a ghost story? For me it was the grief that was held in the hearts and souls of the characters and not necessarily the ghost in the Grief Cottage that haunted the characters. I'll just stick with what Godwin says , "I'll let you be the judge."

I received an advanced copy of this book from Bloomsbury USA through NetGalley.

There are a lot of things that caused me to not like this novel. The main thing is that it led me astray. Everything about the blurb screamed thriller ghost story. However, it would be more apt to describe this book as a literary fiction. Now, I have no problem with the literary fiction genre; I have read quite a few books that fit into this category and have quite enjoyed them. However, I do not like to be misled so blatantly. I felt like I was cheated out of the ghost story experience that was promised. Yes, the novel fixated on death and loss and grief, but there really was no need to brand the story as anything supernatural/involving ghosts. As you can tell, I'm quite upset by this. To make it worse, I didn't really feel like this novel was a very good literary fiction. Even though literary fiction focuses on a certain theme and character growth/development, there is still a plot line; this novel missed the mark on that. I really liked Marcus's character - he is a genuine sweetheart who tries so hard to please others. However, I didn't really think he developed or grew in any real way; nothing that happened to him on his beach adventures really seemed to have the kind of impact I associate with literary fiction novels. In fact, the last portion of the novel completely threw me off because suddenly, the author takes us into the future and compresses together a decade of activity in Marcus's life that just ... made the story even more choppy than it already was. It was just weird and unnecessary. Another thing that I found a bit weird about this story was the writing style used for Marcus's voice. The whole novel is like a monologue of the internal thoughts and feelings of Marcus but his voice sounds like that of a well-educated adult rather than an 11-year-old child. I'm not saying that children cannot have great vocabulary and think beyond their years, but the author never really showed Marcus as being so extraordinarily gifted and it just seemed so at odds with the personality and character of Marcus. It made it hard for me to believe in the story and feel connected to Marcus (even though, as mentioned previously, I liked him). The last little thing that bothered me was the way the author kept harping on the pronunciation of a specific character in the book, Lash. Every time Lash talked, the author just had to take a specific word and in brackets, write it out phonetically. It was cool at first because it helped me hear the voice in my head as I was reading but it got tedious really quick.

So overall, I really didn't have a good experience with this book. I didn't like how misleading the premise was, I didn't like that the writing style was choppy, I didn't think there was really any plot, and Marcus's voice just really didn't fit with his character. For those reasons, this novel gets a 1.5/5 stars from me.

At one point in Gail Godwin's pensive new novel Grief Cottage (Bloomsbury, digital galley), 11-year-old Marcus sees a boy his own age coming toward him. He is startled that the sturdy, suntanned youth is his own mirrored reflection, and no wonder. He is no longer the pale, bookish orphan sent to stay with his great-aunt on a South Carolina island after his mother's sudden death. Not that Marcus isn't still haunted by grief and loss, and also, perhaps, by the ghost of a boy who disappeared during a hurricane 50 years ago. Marcus senses his presence in the ruin of Grief Cottage, which has been immortalized in Aunt Charlotte's atmospheric paintings. She is laconic, solitary, prickly and drinks to ward off her own demons, and she seems an unlikely guardian for a growing boy. But the two come to depend on one another, especially after an accident turns Charlotte into a temporary invalid unable to paint. Marcus is also befriended by an island old-timer who restores antique cars, the head of the local sea-turtle watch, and the wealthy widow next-door mourning the loss of her grown son.

Although set in the early years of this century, Grief Cottage glints with nostalgia for lost people and times. Part of it is the past-haunted Lowcountry setting; Godwin borrows from Pawley's Island and Isle of Palms to create her own island, where the shifting sands thwart developers. Part of it, too, is an undercurrent of mystery. Who is Marcus's father? Why did Aunt Charlotte leave home long ago? What happened to Grief Cottage's inhabitants when Hurricane Hazel howled ashore? Such questions animate this haunting summer story.

from On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever

It's hard to figure out how to review this as I respected it more than I enjoyed it. Godwin has a way with languag. I know that Marcus' voice is coming from Marcus as an adult not Marcus as the 11 year old but occasionally it felt odd. I liked how ghosts were used to help him through his grief and I liked Aunt Charlotte. I'd also like to spend time on the island, which is used to great effect. I don't think, as some have suggested, that this is a YA novel, although certainly it would be a good read for the right YA reader, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Eleven-year-old Marcus has dealt with his share of disappointment and heartache. His single mom is struggling to make ends meet, bouncing around and ‘downsizing’ (as she puts it) with each move. He ruined his friendship with Wheezer, beat him to the point where it wasn’t clear if the boy would even survive. Seeing as how Marcus’s mother worked for the company owned by Wheezer’s family…yet another move is in their future. Despite their serious penny-pinching, Marcus and his mother live the best life they can, until the night of the car accident, the night the one person Marcus has in the world is swiftly and brutally ripped from him.

The only relative left is an elderly aunt Marcus has never met. Still, she’s appointed his guardian, and he’s escorted through airport gates to a new life on a South Carolina island. Aunt Charlotte is an artist, painting landscapes for those willing to pay, and there’s one cottage in particular that captivates tourists above all others: Grief Cottage. Half a century ago, a hurricane tore through the town and the family who lived in the home were assumed to have been swept out to sea. Naturally Marcus is fascinated – especially once he gets close enough to the ruins and feels an eerie presence.

Don’t go into Grief Cottage expecting an action-packed, edge-of-your-seat ride. That’s not what this book is, nor what it tries to be. When I was in high school, I was a huge anime fan and my favorite genre was known as slice of life. These shows were based in reality (sorry, no giant robots here!) and featured easygoing, meandering plots that were in no rush to get to where they were going. Grief Cottage reminded me of those shows as it tells the story of a little boy and the summer he spent on an island. There’s artwork, turtle hatching, finding a father-figure in a neighbor who has a taste for vintage cars.

While I love a good slow plot, one thing I was not a fan of was the ghost element. Take a second to read the book’s summary. It certainly sounds like this will be a ghost story, right? That’s definitely what I thought and was disheartened to discover that wasn’t the case at all. There are maybe three sightings of the dead boy throughout the entire novel and most of that arc surrounds Marcus’s desire to find out who the family was. While every other person involved with the hurricane is name-dropped in all the newspaper articles and novels Marcus can find from that time, the three out-of-towners who perished are merely glossed over. I would have loved to see more of this boy and watch his character develop.

Grief Cottage is a moody, atmospheric novel that certainly held me captive despite not being quite what I expected. Unfortunately, the blurb builds up the ghost element a bit too much, when in actuality, the sightings hardly amount to more than a few pages’ worth. I did notice several threads that trailed off (including the go-nowhere possible alcoholic turn of one character) and hopefully those loose ends will be tightened up in the finished version. Though I had some misgivings, I did enjoy this book and the cover alone makes it one to take home! That painting is gorgeous and captures to story so, so perfectly – bravo to the art department!

This is a solid piece of what I'd consider literary fiction. I've come to realise it's a genre I can really enjoy when I'm in the right mood to really immerse myself in a slow, atmospheric read that'll make you think. No doubt about it: this is a slow book that concentrates on the reader really getting to know the characters. It's very beautifully written and intelligent. It's not a long book, but read right it might take a little while to get through it. Absolutely not your typical ghost story, so don't go into it expecting many chills and thrills. (There are a couple of moments that gave me chills, but that's not the focus of the story.)

Marcus is now an orphan. He never knew his father, and now his mother has been killed in an accident. It's sudden and brutal, leaving eleven year old Marcus at a loss. His mother was who he was closest to, enough so that he even faced some ribbing from his best friend about it. They were united, forging ahead though a life full of money troubles and crazy landladies. Now he's alone. Of course, he can't stay that way. He's soon entrusted into the care of his great aunt, an artist who lives on an island and enjoys a life of self-induced seclusion. She doesn't seem to enjoy other people as much as she enjoys wine and painting.

Luckily for her, Marcus isn't your average eleven year old boy. He's very intelligent, respectful, tidy, and well-spoken. He's also capable of amusing himself, which is for the best as he and his aunt only share a meal a day with her painting alone most of the rest of the time, and school hasn't started yet. Made curious by a cottage that often features in her paintings, he launches a little investigation into what the locals call the "Grief Cottage". Two adults and a boy a few years older than Marcus disappeared from there during a hurricane fifty years ago. They're assumed washed away, a mere footnote without names in the town's history. Dealing with grief of his own, Marcus is drawn to the ramshackle place. Convinced he can feel a presence there, he returns to it again and again and even becomes convinced he's actually seen the ghost of that forgotten boy.

This book is full of memorable characters, including Marcus and Charlotte and unlikely friends the boy makes. Towards the beginning of the book, he recalls something as how it was when he was a child. At only eleven, he is still very much a child. However, he speaks and acts far beyond his years so it makes sense that he would connect more with people far older than him.

I have read quite a few three star reviews of this one, but it was very close to a five star read for me. I'm not sure if it just spoke to me more, or if it wasn't what those other readers were expecting. My final rating is a 4.5, rounded up. It's not the kind of book everyone will enjoy, but if you're in the right mood and have patience for it, it's a fantastic read.

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley and Bloomsbury USA, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

This book was near the top of my TBR list for 6/6/17, however, it was my last one to read. Why, the title. I kept looking at it and putting it off, because I was in the mood for an upbeat book. This didn't seem to be one. Why, the title.

However when I did open the book to read, I found it slow moving in several places. There was a huge saving grace, Marcus, I loved this little man! He talked so grown up and acted the same way and he was only 11 years old. The author did a great job developing and staying true to his character. His obsession with the "ghost boy" had him doing some crazy things and was the basis of most of the book. As well as, taking care of his Aunt Charlotte which was a heck of a job. The aunt was rather crusty, but did mellow over the year.

As I said, slow, but Marcus does save this book. He's someone you love to get to know.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley to read in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.

The writing is beautiful; the story is as haunting as the ghosts within it. A novel of loss is usually hard to devour but this one is an exception!

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with this boy. He’s a little older than me, fourteen, and he’s been dead for fifty years.”

I found the most compelling part of the story is that which directly related to the ‘ghost boy’ who occupies a vacant beach house, a boy who disappeared years ago during a hurricane, along with his parents.

Marcus, a boy wise beyond his 11 years, has come to live with his great aunt after the death of his mother. I liked Marcus’s character, his spunk and his curious nature. After learning the tragic history of the derelict house named “Grief Cottage”, Marcus’ curiosity gets the best of him. Each day as he pedals his bicycle to the spooky house, feeling the pull of this house and the presence of its’ resident ‘ghost boy’, his courage strengthening, I perked up. I looked forward to the evolving interactions between the two boys. Unfortunately, it started to wear thin around 55% into the book, too slow of a simmer and I found that nearing the end I just didn’t care anymore. Despite moments of intrigue, I felt there were too many superfluous bits that l couldn’t make sense of or understand how they fit into the plot.