Review: The Secrets of Roscarbury Hall

The Secrets of Roscarbury Hall by Ann O'Loughlin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this as a buddy read on a book group and I wanted to really like it. Unfortunately it fell short of my expectations.

The book in general had very good bones but the character development was slow and confusing. It tended to jump around and instead of concentrating on the important issue in the book, it spent a lot of time discussing two sisters who were not speaking. I felt that time spent that way could have been put to much better use.

Sisters Ella and Roberta O'Callaghan haven't spoken for decades, torn apart by a dark family secret from their past. They both still live in the family's crumbling Irish mansion, communicating only through the terse and bitter notes they leave for each other in the hallway. But when their way of life is suddenly threatened by bankruptcy, Ella tries to save their home by opening a café in the ballroom – much to Roberta's disgust.

As the café begin to thrive, the sisters are drawn into a new battle when Debbie, an American woman searching for her birth mother, starts working at the Ballroom Café. Debbie has little time left but as she sets out to discover who she really is and what happened to her mother, she is met by silence and lies at the local convent. Determined to discover the truth, she begins to uncover an adoption scandal that will rock both the community and the warring sisters.