By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Columnist
Rosie Llywelyn has always been very close with her aunt, Sarah. Despite a huge age difference, the two are close friends and share stories with each other. Sometimes, Rosie likes Aunt Sarah better than her own parents.
When Sarah gets stuck in a hospital elevator while at work, her personality completely changes. The once fun-loving carefree aunt is now always nervous and saying things that don’t make any sense.
One day when Rosie comes home from school, her aunt goes berserk and starts yelling at her. “Where’s Rosie’s umbrella? What have you done with our Rosie’s umbrella?” she screams. Rosie is left completely confused having no idea what her aunt is talking about. Her parents quickly take her aunt to a psychiatric hospital, despite Rosie’s pleas not to, and ask Rosie not to ask any questions about what is wrong with Sarah.
Lonely without her aunt with her at home, Rosie spends hours trying to figure out what is going on with her family.
At school, Rosie gets assigned to a project in which she has to talk about her family’s ancestry. Rosie has no idea where her parents are even from, since they never talk about it; they don’t even have pictures from their childhood. With her teacher’s help, she finds that her name is of Welsh origin. When Rosie tells her parents about this project and asks for more information of her Welsh history, they are reluctant to give her any information and encourage her to report on the castles in Wales, a very superficial topic.
Rosie wonders why her family doesn’t want her to go deep to find information about her Welsh roots. She resorts to secretly emailing her aunt from the psychiatric hospital to get any information. Because her aunt is so ill, the information she gives is broken pieces of a bigger picture that doesn’t make sense on its own.
However, Rosie does her best to put the pieces together. She finds that her family lived in a coal mining area. Her family’s biggest secret, too shocking to talk about, is revealed when Rosie finds information about a girl with the same, exact name as her.
Rosie’s Umbrella is partly a psychological thriller and partly historical fiction. These two genres woven together create a book that is both eerie and entertaining.
The beginning of the book is rather slow at times as the author builds the plot. I found times when there was information that didn’t really needed to be included in the story, like little actions that were irrelevant to the plot line. However, once the plot gets more intense, the book is a page-turner that will keep you on your toes dying to know the secrets hidden into the Llywelyn family past.
Thank you to Goodreads and the author for sending me this book in return for my honest opinion.