This is a tale of complicated choices, tragedy and mental instability combined with all the bad luck life can throw at you. Told simply at the beginning, the emotional intensity of The Girl on the Cliff by Lucinda Riley tightens and tightens like a old screw turned so hard it can’t be loosened. Until finally it gives way.

Visiting her family in Ireland, Grania Ryan is running from pain. She has just miscarried and is upset with her boyfriend, Matt, for an unexplained reason. At home she sees a young girl walking on the cliffs and is curious about her. Aurora Devonshire is eight years old, she lives in the big house beside the sea, raised by an accumulation of governesses, nannies and household staff during the absence of her father Alexander. Grania is transfixed by the child, but her mother Kathleen is worried by any contact made with ‘that family’. The Girl of the Cliff is the story of three generations of women in the two families, their loves, losses, sacrifices, cruelties and grudges. And throughout it all runs the mystery of why Grania cannot return to New York to her grieving and confused boyfriend.
BUY

Read my reviews of Riley’s The Love Letter, The Seven Sisters and The Storm Sister.

If you like this, try:-
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power
‘The Crows of Beara’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF by @lucindariley #books http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2P4 via @SandraDanby