Blackbird House

I was reading this and I was half way through the second chapter when I thought hmmm is this a set of short stories? Turned out it wasn't, I was just being a bit dim, it is the story of a house, blackbird house. Written by Alice Hoffman, and you can't much go wrong with a Hoffman novel she's a sturdy sort of writer always dependable for a good yarn, this fairly short book is like I said the story of house over maybe 200 years or so. It tells the tales of the families that lived in it, the majority of which are struck by some kind of tragedy. Some chapters are linked by more than the house some that's all they have in common and in all honesty you could read the chapters independently and still have an enjoyable read, but sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts and this is definitely one of those times. The stories build and twist together more the more you read and it ends up almost being a ghost story but it's much more subtle. It is certainly haunting, parts of it are sad, occasionally it leaves you slack jawed in shock but overall it's excellent, 4 stars.