** Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review. **

Technically this is a 2.5 star. I typically round up in the event of a half star, but in this case I didn't feel like it really reached that solidly to a 2.5 to justify an upround.

I liked the premise for the story, as this was a topic I had not prior heard of. I enjoyed the setting as well. Wales is not a place I frequently see in historical fiction. I started out with a great amount of interest in the narrative and looked forward to learning about a new bit of history (though I expected quite a bit of author latitude in the details as this is historical fiction rather than non-fiction).

However, I struggled to make my way through the book. The writing was very dense, which gave me terrible issues. There are frequent run-on sentences and there were several times where I had to stop to go back and reread passages in order to understand what was going on. There were long sections where things would improve steadily and I felt that it have been a small blip in the quality of the writing, but then there would be another portion of the story that left me confused.

The story felt very dichotomous, with the meshing of Christine and Sarah's stories feeling a bit rough. While I thought that Christine was a fairly well-developed character, I think I just struggled with the vacillating point of view. A direct narrative may have worked better for me rather than using Christine as a conduit.

I could have seen past a lot of this if I had felt satisfied with the ending. The history of this story has a lot of merit and, as stated earlier, did pique my interest. However, it felt like there were a lot of questions left unanswered and some situations that remained rather unclear. Ultimately, I didn't feel fulfilled after what was a fairly long read.