Farundell [Kindle Edition]

I'm not absolutely sure if this is Fredericks' first novel, but if it is, I'm amazed! From the very first page, this novel is a cracking trip down a rabbit hole of an entirely different sort, and takes the reader on an intellectual and fantastical journey that is both subtle and mindbending at once. The story begins with the disenfranchised, one might say, disenchanted hero,Paul Asher, in the aftermath of the Great War, meeting someone at a party who can give him a job. He journeys from London to the wilds of Oxford(!) and the house known as Farundell, home of the eccentric and mysterious Damory family. There he sees the ancestral ghost, and becomes a seeker after knowledge, aided by the precocious neophyte Alice, the strange and compelling Sophie and eccentric Aunt Theo. Each character is a complete portrait in itself, and the plot unfolds like a Chinese puzzlebox, drawing the reader in with every turn of the page. Frederick's writing is at times poetic, at others, taut, and never less than brilliant! He exactly captures the postwar feel of 1924. I've read the book twice and it's still unputdownable - I've just pulled it off the shelf for a third read. A keeper - and there aren't many books I say that about!

This is set shortly after WWI in a world where young men still struggle daily with their memories of that dreadful time and a whole generation has been cut down "like a harvest". Paul Asher is an American who joined up largely to escape his father and comes in contact with his friend Val when he pulls him from a crashed plane. After the war he is unwilling to return home and unsure what he can do. Through Val he meets Maggie Damory, who says her elderly and blind father needs someone to help him write his memoirs. Thus Paul arrives at Farundell, their country house in Oxfordshire.

From that point, the story becomes slow, winding and magical, quite unlike anything I have read before. Paul feels instantly at hom and becomes entwined with the life of the family - both living and dead. He is working for Lord Damory (Percy) but there are many other characters. These include Percy's kind and empathic sister Theo, Maggie's children, including the headstrong and beautiful Sylvie and the intelligent, precocious Alice, Percy's son Daniel who lives apart from the family after suffering shell shock and Francis Damory, an ancestor of the family that only some people can see.

Judging from previous reviews people either find this novel enchanting or boring. Personally I found it slow, unwinding, magical and enchanting. When Paul asks why he is experiencing things he never experienced before he is told, "doors are opening". This is a world where things in the periphery of vision move, where the moon body flies while the characters sleep in bed, where ghosts are seen and where Paul is both healed and harmed, finds peace and suffering, while he comes to terms with what happened to him. Farundell is the first in a linked series of novels about these characters and the next is Fate.

If you are somebody who is in to astral travelling, esoterics, ancient Egyptian thoughts on the gods and goddesses, ancient (and present for those that are left) tribal spirit guides etc. you are going to love this book. The author is obviously deeply interested in all these things and has written a book incorporating this philosophy of life into a rather unusual story. Paul is a casualty of war who winds up quite by chance (or is it?) in a beautiful country estate with a fairly eccentric family just after the First World War. It depicts life in those times rather beautifully, and you can almost imagine being there in a wonderful big house with grounds and gardens and lakes at your disposal. You immediately realise that quite a few members of this family, past and present, have the ability to see the world in a totally different way and from the point of view of many dimensions. Thus the story unfolds. It is a love story, a ghost story, a story of the spirit realm, life after death and remembering what most have forgotten. Beautifully descriptive.