Jenni Mills

I was prompted to read this novel set in and around the stone circle of Avebury in Wiltshire, after listening to the audiobook of Children of the Stones, one of my all time favourite TV series filmed and set there in 1977. This novel had many good elements: two timelines, one set in modern (2005) Avebury, the other in the same place in the late 1930s and into the war; archaeology; the occult; wartime dangers and heroism; a fairly wide cast of characters, some of them real historical figures show more (explained in the author's note at the end); and exploration of themes such as dementia. The two time zones are connected through a 2005 young woman India, working part time in TV and part time in a cafe, while looking after her grandmother Fran, and Fran's own youth in the 1930s working with archaeologists to restore fallen stones from the circle into their original positions; with appearances and connections with other family members as well. Despite all these elements, I found the narrative a bit rambling and rather too long, and the elements didn't always hang together satisfactorily for me, though the last few chapters of tying things up raised it in my estimation. show less

The setting of CROW STONE is the tunnels that sit under the city of Bath. The tunnels are the result of the mining for the workable pale gold stone for which Bath is famous. But now the tracery of tunnelwork is collapsing and mining engineer Kit Parry has been engaged to stabilize the ancient workings. Written in two connected time frames, Kit's childhood, and the present, the novel combines the elements of thriller (danger) and mystery. Even today women are not welcome in the underground show more world of men and someone definitely resents Kit's presence in the project. I loved the interweaving of the Mithraic mystery too - did Roman soldiers worship Mithras.? There are some lovely descriptive passages too. A debut novel, and hopefully not Jenni Mills' last. show less

CROW STONE is a wonderfully sinister, psychological, suspense novel, which skilfully weaves together past and present to create an addictive page-turning and extremely well written rollercoaster of a novel.

It starts in the 1970s, when something happens to fourteen-year-old Katie that changes the course of her life forever. She lives with her strict father who forbids any reference to her absent mother. Katie escapes from the pressures of family life and schoolwork by exploring the Roman show more stone mines that are underneath Bath. Various events start to come together and result in a terrible act of betrayal that she tries to bury as deep as the mines she loves.
Twenty years on, we find Katie - now calling herself Kit - returning to Bath for the first time since that summer. She is now a mining engineer, and is overseeing a project to stabilise the old mines and fill them with concrete. But there are secrets hidden underground, and danger awaits Kit Parry in the ancient quarries. Someone wants her out of Bath - who was it that brought her childhood to an abrupt end in the summer of her fourteenth year? Why has she never been back to Bath? How did she escape her violent father? Why did her mother leave her? All of these questions are concluded in a fantastic nail biting ending. show less

This is the second archaeological-based mystery thriller I have read by this author, though I didn't enjoy it as much as Buried Circle. This one is based around the discovery of a temple to Mithras in some old mines underneath Bath. While I love Bath, we don't get to see much of the city here, and indeed we don't get that much of the mystery either. While there were some creepy and atmospheric scenes set in the utter darkness of the mines, much of the novel concerned the childhood travails show more of the central character, Kit Parry, and her complex relationships with her families and friends as she grew up, with chapters alternating between her childhood and her current (2007) work as a mining engineer, facing sexism from many of her colleagues in an overwhelmingly male industry. For me, there was rather too much of Kit's personal life, and not enough of the mystery/thriller elements in a slightly rambling and probably overlong novel. I understand what the author was trying to achieve, but this imbalance was a bit of a disappointment to me. show less