“The White Hare seems to me to be a perfect manifestation for all those things in life we sense but cannot know.”

It was a ‘no brainer’ that I would read “The White Hare” as I so thoroughly enjoyed this author’s last novel “The Sea Gate“.

Once again, Jane Johnson transports her readers to Cornwall, one of my own personal favourite settings. Steeped in rich history, folklore, and yes… magic. The story is set in the winter of 1954/55.

It is a story of fresh starts, childhood traumas, superstition, historic murders, myths, old religions, and ancient Cornish history.

Mila’s marriage ended on a traumatic note, and now,  to escape an untenable situation, she finds herself and her daughter living with her mother once again. They have recently purchased an old house near the sea in Cornwall and intend to fix it up so that they can run it as a guest house.

The characters were well drawn.  Outsiders, they were Polish immigrants, and I enjoyed learning about some of their Polish customs. Though I did like the protagonist, Mila, I found her mother Magda very difficult to care for. Her daughter, Janey, was a solitary, precocious girl, who seemed headstrong and at times disobedient.

Though, I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as her previous novel, “The White Hare” was still an enjoyable read that I can heartily recommend.

This review was written voluntarily, and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Simon and Schuster via Edelweiss. ISBN: 9781982140939 – ASIN: ‎ B09RX494D6 – 400 pagesPublished October 4, 2022 by Simon & Schuster

Jane Johnson is from Cornwall and has worked in the book industry for 30 years as a bookseller, publisher and writer.

For many years she was responsible for publishing the works of JRR Tolkien, and later worked on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, spending many months in New Zealand with cast and crew (she wrote the official visual companions to the films). The authors she publishes include George RR Martin (creator of A Game of Thrones), Dean Koontz, Robin Hobb, Stuart MacBride, Mark Lawrence, Raymond E Feist and SK Tremayne.

While she was in Morocco in 2005 to research The Tenth Gift she met her soon-to-be husband Abdellatif, a Berber tribesman from a village in the Anti-Atlas Mountains. Returning home, she gave up her office job in London, sold her flat and shipped the contents to Morocco and they were married later that year. They now split their time between Cornwall and Morocco, and Jane still works remotely as a Fiction Publishing Director for HarperCollins.

Visit Jane Johnson’s website: https://www.janejohnsonbooks.com/

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