A beautiful tale of two women, a greenhouse, and a secret to be discovered at the turn of the 20th century.. Botany is also presented as a growing character in this charming book.

The Glass House is a richly written historical fiction about 2 women coming together from different continents to deal with settling the estate of Edward Pick. He has an extraordinary greenhouse that is the center of this novel. The plot draws the reader into the book to try to figure out all of Edward's secrets he left behind.

Scotland 1912 and two very different women. One is retiring, willing to accept decisions of others on her behalf and though inwardly quite ruffled does nothing about it. The other has had responsibility thrust on her by a reckless or rather feckless husband. She does not shirk from a task however unpleasant it is for the protection of her young daughter mainly and goes forward quite boldly, even in very difficult circumstances.

Cicely Pick arrives at Balmarra a run down manor house from India expecting much more. She arrives unannounced and to Antonia the resident and daughter of the house this alone is very suspicious. She knows it is only due to an inheritance issue that brings Cicely here. Despite her initial misgivings Cicely brings a touch of color to Antonia's life and a small spark of rebellion is lit where Antonia feels that she must now make her mark in their small world.

The factor of race in Cicely's case with a touch of Indian ancestry plays no small part in the story but it is the descriptiveness of Scotland that entrances one. Together with the story of both sisters in law and their husbands playing another part in the story, this was a very good read.

The good people at Flatiron Books offered me a copy of Beatrice Colin’s new novel: The Glass House. I absolutely loved this historical fiction novel, centering on two very different sisters-in-law: Antonia and Cicely.

Cicely has come to Scotland with her young daughter in order to wrap up her father-in-law’s estate. Sent from India by her botanist husband, who is trekking around in search of plants, she lands outside of her comfort zone in her husband’s family and the Scottish society and culture of the time (early 1900’s). Cicely is a strong woman and is not about to let anything or anyone stop her from gaining what she needs to make a good life for her daughter. Meanwhile, daughter of the house, Antonia, assumed the estate would be hers. She has sacrificed just about all her earthly wants and desires, hopes and dreams, to care for her father and the manor, and she’s not ready to give it all up. The glass house is the greenhouse on the estate, where delicate seedlings take root; but even seemingly hardy plants can wither and die if not cared for.

Here’s the overview from the publisher:

Description
Beatrice Colin’s The Glass House is a gorgeously transporting novel filled with turn-of-the-century detail and lush blooms, about two women from vastly different worlds

Scotland, 1912. Antonia McCulloch’s life hasn’t gone the way she planned. She and her husband, Malcolm, have drifted apart; her burgeoning art career came to nothing; and when she looks in the mirror, she sees disappointment. But at least she will always have Balmarra, her family’s grand Scottish estate, and its exquisite glass house, filled with exotic plants that can take her far away.

When her estranged brother’s wife, Cicely Pick, arrives unannounced, with her young daughter and enough trunks to last the summer, Antonia is instantly suspicious. What besides an inheritance dispute could have brought her glamorous sister-in-law all the way from India? Still, Cicely introduces excitement and intrigue into Antonia’s life, and, as they get to know one another, Antonia realizes that Cicely has her own burdens to bear. Slowly, a fragile friendship grows between them. But when the secrets each are keeping become too explosive to conceal, the truth threatens their uneasy balance and the course of their entire lives.

If you love a solid historical fiction piece, with strong female protagonists, this is a great choice! Beautifully written, Colin’s writing vividly portrays the Scottish countryside and people of another era.

So many choices in this book that affect others in their outcomes; this book really makes you stop and think how your actions can affect others.

I read that the author has passed away from cancer in 2019, which is heart-breaking. She was only 55. It is nice that her stories live on.

Thank you so much for sharing this novel with me through Net Galley!

The Glass House is a historical fiction set in Scotland in 1912. I normally never go for historical fiction, but I’m so glad that I was gifted a copy from Netgalley and Flatiron Books in exchange for my review.

Cicely, an Indian woman married to a Scottish botanist, along with their daughter Kitty set off for Scotland to stay at her in-laws mansion, Balmarra. Her father-in-law has just died, and unbeknownst to his daughter Antonia, he has left Cicely and her husband George his entire estate. They have also come uninvited and unannounced, as George is off on a new species hunting journey and never sent his family a letter announcing his wife and daughter’s arrival. Cicely does some digging, and realizes that the estate will be harder to take over than she first realizes, as there have been several updates to the will. Who will the estate go to? How will she tell Antonia the real reason for her visit?

I loved the characterization, but that being said I hated all of the men in this book. I’m unsure if that was intentional, but all of them were insufferable in their own ways. Also, so much of the conflict could have been resolved if Antonia and Cicely were honest with each other. I feel like if this was supposed to be a “YEAH, SISTERHOOD!” kind of novel, they should have been more supportive of one another. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Everyone was so...interesting that it was hard to put down.

The Glass House has great writing, an atmospheric setting, and complicated family and social dynamics, but these parts didn’t come together to create an engaging story.

Pacing is incredibly slow. In fact, so little happens during the entire first half of the book that it could’ve been condensed to about twenty-five pages. The second half of the book picks up, with a chaotic feel that lacks cohesion.

Kitty, Cicely’s young daughter, is the only character I found interesting. The men in this story are all jerks. Cicely and Antonia lack even the slightest spark in their personalities. They aren’t well developed, and I just didn’t find them all that interesting.

The story tries to incorporate racism as a thread woven throughout, but this doesn’t quite work. Cicely is a mixed raced woman from India, a country with an embedded caste system, and yet we never learn anything about Cicely’s place within that system or what it has meant as far as the trajectory of her life. When she arrives in Scotland, she experiences the kind of covert racism that shows itself in offhand remarks and barely concealed contemptuous stares, but this is inconsistent and almost fluff in the way it’s presented. I wanted to know more about the emotional effect on Cicely and Kitty. I also wanted a better sense of how Antonia felt about having a mixed race sister-in-law, as well as how she felt about the related town gossip.

In the end, the promised friendship between the two women never truly forms. I’m not even sure if there’s a point to it all, aside from ‘women need to stick together and men are awful.’

This book was super good. It was super original and I flew through it. It didn't feel like anything I've read in the past. Can't wait to read more from the author!! This book was unputdownable.

The Glass House is an interesting book. The story is about a family separated by continents, lifestyles and beliefs trying not too sucessfully to find common ground.

The story starts with Cicely and her daughter Kitty arriving unexpectedly to Balmarra, Cicely’s husband’s childhood home in remote Scotland. She thinks she is coming to sell the home per his instructions, but complications ensue when she gets to know her sister-in-law Antonio and her family, who will be homeless if all goes to plan.

I loved the time period and setting on the novel, was a bit less enamored of the characters. They did frustrating things, but then don’t we all sometimes. I loved the botany aspect as well. Not something that I am well versed in, so was interested in that aspect.

Overall I enjoyed The Glass House and look forward to more novels from the author.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, Flatiron Books, and the author for the chance to review this book

The Glass House was a hard book for me to get into. The relationships between the characters were not that interesting. It was difficult to understand the importance of plant-finding expeditions and the value of undiscovered plants. It seemed like everything could have been resolved if there had just been open communication between everyone at the beginning.

When Cecelia and her 12-year-old daughter arrive unannounced at Balmarra expecting that her husband has inherited the estate, it turns out more complicated than that. Set in Scotland on in a large home on an island, the author is adept at creating a sense of place and an interesting set of characters. While I enjoyed reading this book, I felt it was a little overly “adept” at creating a hurtle for every step forward. For example, when Cecilia and her daughter take plant samples from the Himalayas to the Royal Botanical Garden in hopes of getting a sponsor for her husband’s trek, the plant samples are put in a satchel and then forgotten on the train. This just seemed so contrived to me. The reason they were going to Glasgow was the plants. How did two people forget them on the train? And the ending? It fell flat in my view, as well as a little contrived.

The Glass House is an entertaining historical novel set in the early 1900s in Scotland. The family of the late Edward Pick are gathered at the family’s estate, each in anticipation of inheriting Balmarra and it's exotic plant collection . In an almost comedic series of circumstances, each of family members has a treasure in hand, just to have it snatched from their grasp. It isn’t until all of the obvious treasure is gone that the family find ways to move on to pursue more important and further-reaching dreams.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My favorite part of the book was the Setting of 1912, Scotland and the descriptions of travel, the clothes, and the beautiful plants. The author paints a vivid picture of the scene, starting with the landscape and what Cicely sees when they arrive from India to Scotland.

Unfortunately, I never fully understood the characters. I didn’t understand their motives for doing certain things and for their endings in the story. The pacing of the story was also difficult for me and I almost quit halfway through because events were stagnating. Then, it was a rush to the finish, so I am not sure what actually happened to some of the characters.

I recommend this book to historical fiction fans who enjoy richly detailed settings. 3.5/5

This book was a very interesting premise and I really liked the link between the colonial history of India and Scotland. Cecily travels from India to Scotland with her daughter Kitty to lay claim to her husbands inheritance. Her husband is a botanist and is currently traveling to find new species of plants! I kept getting frustrated with how Cecily and Antonia kept working against each other when they both just want whats best for the same man. I wish Cecily was a more like-able character but I think she was meant to be complicated and not like-able. Her daughter was also super annoying, but I think the author was trying to show the differences with people depending on where they were raised, and it is possible my own bias is working it's way in to this opinion.
-
For a short book, it was very slow paced but drawn out in the way that makes you want to see what is going to happen to the characters. Overall it was interesting!

An Anglo Indian wife, Cicely, arrives unannounced on a boat from India with her daughter in Scottland. Her Scottish husband, Malcolm is to inherit the family estate. He wants his wife to sell the estate without thinking of his sister who still lives there and regards it as home.
The story could be interesting and with many topics which could have been explored, but alas, were not. In addition, the characters were not fully developed and some changes of characters like the sister’s husband not fully believable.
While the beginning was a bit slow the story picked up but never became a coherent and convincing piece.

Beatrice Colin has written a deep and thoughtful book exploring the power of unexpected relationships. Set in 1912 in Scotland, this is the story of Cicely and Antonia.

Cicely arrives in Scotland to do claim her husband's inheritance - while he stays in India on a botanical expedition. She quickly meets Antonia, her husband's sister, and finds that staking their claim in the property isn't going to be as easy as she thought, as she see how much Antonia has put into caring for the family home and how much help she actually needs.

It's a lovely story but it kind of felt flat at the end. Still, it was an enjoyable escape.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Glass House is a wonderfully written story about two women, who come from vastly different backgrounds, but seem to both have things in their lives that they wish they could change. Set in 1912 Scotland, Cicely Pick arrives from India on the doorstep at Balmarra to claim her husband’s inheritance. However, she cannot quite tell her husband’s sister, Antonia McCulloch, the reason behind her visit and finds it harder to reveal this the more she gets to know her. As the two sisters begin to build a small friendship, it becomes clear that the secrets between them could cause everything to fall apart.

When I started reading The Glass House, I was immediately drawn to Colin’s writing style and her level of detail when describing everything from the scene as Cicely arrives at Balmarra to Antonia’s anxiety when she finds herself in several social settings. Colin’s writing painted a vivid picture throughout the book, really making the story come alive. I also liked how Colin made Cicely and Antonia so different from one another, but then had them experience the same difficulty of trying to discover themselves outside of their marriages. It was a reminder that we all need to have a piece of ourselves that is solely for our enjoyment and not out of duty for the responsibilities and relationships in our lives. Reading each woman’s journey to find herself was enjoyable, but at times frustrating. This was especially true with Antonia who makes a few considerable mistakes and often says the wrong thing at the wrong time. I found myself getting frustrated with her character, but at the same time still hoping she would find her happiness.

I would recommend this book for the writing alone, but I also liked the story it told and the journey you saw throughout the book for both Cicely and Antonia. At first I thought the book ended rather abruptly, but then I thought about it more and realized that maybe it ended perfectly with each woman finding something different in each of their lives and that I just wanted to know what happened next for them. I suppose that Colin’s ability to write two characters you feel invested in, speaks to her incredible writing though.

This book feels like a bad imitation of Patchett’s “The Dutch House” set in 1910’s Scotland. Poorly done and boring.

Thanks to NetGalley and FlatIron Books for this advanced readers copy of the The Glass House by Beatrice Colin.

What a delightful read! This is the story of Cicely and Antonia, two sisters-in-law who don't know each at all when the story starts but become entwined in each others lives over the course of the book. These two ladies are from completely different cultures and countries, with nothing in common except for Cicely's husband George, who happens to be Antonia's brother. The dual cultures of India and Scotland clash in various ways, some small and some lifechanging.

I really enjoyed this book, although it started a little slow for me. It took the first half of the book for me to become fully engrossed but then I was hooked. The female characters are fully fleshed out, while the male characters are there mostly as mirrors reflecting all of the ways in which Cicely and Antonia dislike themselves and each other. This book left a smile on my face at the end. I"m actually hoping it gets made into a movie, as the imagery in the book would translate beautifully.

For fiction lovers, this one's for you!

What a gorgeous book this is! Antonia has been living a small life at her estate in Scotland. She paints, she manages the household, and she tends to the gorgeous Glass House full of exotic and prosaic plants. Then one morning Cicely and Kitty- the sister in law and niece she never knew existed arrive. Cicely has her own motives - her husband George collects rare plants and now that his father has died, he would like Cicely to sell the estate so that he can use the profits to do more exploration. Cicely stands out in the small Scottish town- her grandmother was Indian. This is both good and bad, as she attracts the attention of the local rich man. She changes Antonia- how she looks at herself and the world. She also discovers that George (and his father) had more secrets than anyone knew, This has lovely twists and turns with great characters. It is lush. Colin, sadly, died in 2019 and one must wonder whether she felt she had completed this to her satisfaction. That's not a criticism, rather a comment about how sad it is that this is her last novel. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. I very much enjoyed this and highly recommend for fans of historical fiction.

This book felt like an out-of-tune violin - it had the structure but never hit the right note. It's a cheesy metaphor, but it's accurate. Colin has a strong basis for a historical fiction novel: reuniting family members, a familial dispute over inheritance, and a strong sense of time and place. However, her characters, relationships, and plot points never really reached full volume. Cicely Pick and her daughter Kitty arrive in Argyll, Scotland to the familial home of Cicely's husband George. The two met in India, where Cicely's family has been for the past three generations and where George is attempting to make a living as an amateur botanist. The two are hard pressed for cash and with the recent passing of George's father, the terms of the will and the fate of the familial estate are about to be revealed. Cicely is sent to Scotland to sort out her husband's inheritance while simultaneously befriending Antonia, George's dutiful sister who has lived in the estate her whole life and expects it to be left to her.

I think Colin's two main weaknesses are her attempted examination of race in India and Scotland in 1911 and the confrontation of men and relationships. Colin, a white woman (or at least very white presenting based on Google searches and online bios), chose to make Cicely mixed race (Cicely's grandmother was Hindustani). This plays a major role in Cicely's assimilation into the rural Scotland and eventually causes a riff within the family and the reading of the will. Despite Colin's attempt, Cicely's experience as a mixed race woman in 1912 Scotland does not ring true at all. Colin also barely touches on the colorism that Cicely and her family would have experienced living in India (there was maybe one line about the caste system) which was a huge oversight. In Scotland, there is some observation of people staring and pointedly asking about Cicely's darker skin tone but with a definite air of "see, white people aren't that racist" and "it wasn't that bad in 1912". When Cicely's heritage became a (spoiler) big issue with the will reading, it was generally scoffed at the deceased father could be "that way" (never really naming what he was - a racist). And then, with the discovery of a familial portrait that revealed a Black ancestor in the Pick family, the reader was left with the sentiment that most white families probably have POC in their background so we are really all the same anyways. As a mixed race woman, this entire approach felt disrespectful. There could have been a lot more research and care in the creation of Cicely and her family history and the experience of a mixed race person in 1912 (or, just don't do it at all if you cannot write to the experience).

My second biggest annoyance was the relationships. There were a few romantic relationships that were being set up throughout the novel but I felt like every single one was forced and none of them were authentic whatsoever. The only semblance of legitimate partnership was between Antonia and Cicely and even that was weak at best (saying that they formed a friendship was a stretch - it was more like a tolerance). However, that was the only relationship I thought worth pursuing. All the romantic plot points were also derailed, in my mind at least, by how terrible and selfish all these men were. We get it, men in 1912 suck, and yet, we are still supposed to root for them and be happy with where these flings and relationships are going? Ugh, give me a break. If this was the goal, the men needed to be more well rounded and the relationships approached with more care.

The Glass House by Beatrice Colin was a miss for me, on many levels, but did have an interesting baseline and did attempt to do something different, despite it's failings.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron for an advanced ebook copy in exchange for my honest review.