Renee at It’s Book Talk began this meme as a way to share old favorites. This week I’m showcasing a novel that I read about five years ago. “Evergreen Falls” was, for me, a memorable FOUR STAR read.

“The level of behavior you overlook is the level of behavior you condone.”

With alternating dual narratives set eighty-eight years apart “Evergreen Falls” is set in a majestic and historic old hotel in Australia’s Blue Mountains.

In 1926, the Evergreen Spa Hotel was where Australia’s rich come to stay.  Flora and Sam Honeychurch-Black, wealthy brother and sister, have come to the Evergreen Spa Hotel in order that Sam can ‘recover’ from his condition.  Sadly, his condition is opium addiction and Flora holds out little hope for a ‘cure’.   Along with the siblings are Flora’s fiancé, Tony, and some of his friends.  Flora once dreamed of becoming a doctor, but her family’s aspirations for her, a young woman of impeccable breeding,  was for a advantageous marriage.  Handsome and wealthy, Tony seems to fit the bill.

Violet Armstrong, a naive teenager, has come to work at the hotel to earn money to send back to her mother in Sydney who suffers from severe arthritis.  Luckily for Violet, the manageress of the hotel favours her and keeps her on over the winter months.  When Violet – a lowly waitress – meets the wealthy hotel guest Sam, it is love at first sight for them both.  They begin a secret love affair which has tragic consequences.

Blue Mountains in winter

Things take a sinister turn when a severe snowstorm cuts the hotel off from the neighbouring village.  Tension, frustration and isolation erode the social norms. Most of the hotel guests have left leaving only a handful – with just a skeleton staff to care for their needs.  The kenopsia was palpable.  Then conditions worsen. Their supplies are cut off, staff fall sick with the flu, there is no electricity, and most importantly, Sam’s supply of opium dries up…

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In 2014, after the death of her beloved brother Adam, Lauren Beck comes to Evergreen Falls to work in the hotel’s café.  She is away from her home in Tasmania for the first time.  Although thirty years of age, Lauren is naive to the ways of the world because she had been sheltered by her family whilst caring for her terminally ill older brother.

The hotel is being renovated and refurbished.  Tomas, one of the team of architects from Denmark, comes in to Lauren’s café daily for coffee.  For the first time in her life, she knows how it feels to be attracted to a man.  After a short acquaintance, Tomas gives Lauren a key to the west wing of the hotel where she discovers some old love letters.  Tomas returns to Denmark and she embarks on a quest to discover more about the writer of the letters.

As with most well researched historical novels, I am reminded about the time period.  How segregated males and females were – years before any semblance of equality for women, when a double-standard was the norm.  How unaccepting society was of homosexuality.  The class stratification in the 1920s.

More than a romantic love story, “Evergreen Falls” speaks to the love between siblings, between parent and child, between friends.  A historical saga with a smattering of suspense, the story will be enjoyed by many.

Thanks to Touchstone/Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for  providing me with the digital ARC of the novel in exchange for this review.

Listen to the author describe how her grandmother inspired her to write “Evergreen Falls”.