Welcome to another Friday Reads post. My featured book today is The Legacy of Halesham Hall by Jenni Keer. We’re going to find out a bit more about the book, then Jenni is talking to us about her inspiration behind the story. So grab a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting. 
The Legacy of Halesham Hall Blurb
A love that seems lost, may still yet be found, for real love always endures…
1890. One summer evening changes everything for Sidney and Leonard Bellingham when their beloved mother disappears from the family home, Halesham Hall. Left with their bitter father, they are taught to trust no one but themselves, with brother pitted against brother to see who is worthy of inheriting the Bellingham Board Games company. But the series of twisted games they are forced to play will have far reaching consequences.
1920. Phoebe Bellingham arrives at Halesham Hall determined to solve the puzzles that will allow her to claim back the Bellingham inheritance. But this legacy involves more than one secret, and soon Phoebe realises that the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined.
The Legacy of Halesham Hall is currently available in paperback at The Works nationwide, and the eBook is on a Kindle Monthly Deal for the whole of February – at just 99p!!!
Buy it here: geni.us/YAIFR3w
Welcome Jenni, your book sounds a great read. Can you tell us what made you write the story?
Thank you so much for having me on your blog to talk about my latest book, The Legacy of Halesham Hall. This is my first purely historical novel and I absolutely adored writing about this curious house and its troubled occupants. Houses, particularly unusual ones, often feature in my novels, and I find are invariably characters in their own right.
The book is gothic in tone, set in a fictional Suffolk town, and follows young Phoebe Bellingham as she turns up uninvited at Halesham Hall trying to discover more about the rift that saw her father and her uncle estranged for twenty years. She persuades her uncle that she is there to build bridges, but the truth is, she’s out for one thing only – revenge.
The inspiration for this novel came from a bizarre house I stumbled across online when researching a previous book. It was full of peculiar staircases, most of which served no practical purpose whatsoever. I imagined a set of steps leading to a permanently locked door, and I wondered what, if anything, might be hidden behind it. Halesham Hall, with all its quirks, evolved from this imagined architectural feature.
I decided solving the mystery of the staircase could be a game of sorts, so made Clement Bellingham (the owner of the Hall) the head of a successful board game company, and once I had that in place, the ideas came thick and fast. I grew up in a game playing family, so was able to talk about some of my favourites throughout the story, as well as invent some of my own. I’m certain that my father (who passed away in 2016) would have particularly thrilled that I included poker and chess in this book – both of which he taught me how to play.
Writers are often asked where we get our ideas from, and the truth is, we don’t go looking for them, they come to us. Everything we read, every film we watch, every conversation we overhear, (and, indeed, every random online search), triggers our brains to ask the “What if …?” question. And once we start getting answers, we find a multitude of pathways leading us in a multitude of directions The fun part is deciding which path to take.
An absolute joy to write, The Legacy of Halesham Hall has been well received, hitting 500 reviews already. I hope more readers will follow Phoebe’s story, as she uncovers dark secrets, cruelty and heartbreak, in her quest to find out who she really is, and maybe fall in love along the way.
Jenni x
I’m sure they will, Jenni, it sounds fascinating. Thank you for dropping by to talk to us today.
Meet Jenni
Author Bio
Jenni Keer lives in the middle of the Suffolk countryside with her antique restorer husband, four adult sons and a clowder of cats. When not at her keyboard, she can be found chilling in a houseful of teenagers (not all of which are her own), reading, or practising her dance moves. She has four published novels, with Harper Collins and Headline.
Her previous novel, The Secrets of Hawthorn Place has recently hit 2500 reviews and is an Amazon bestseller.
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Karen King – Writing about the light and dark of relationships.
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Karen-King/e/B0034P6W7I
Website: https://karenkingauthor.com/