Spurred on by curiosity and still haunted by an unresolved family tragedy, a young woman explores an old stately home.

Little does she know that the house contains clues to what happened to her family many years ago.

This is the beginning to the dark and mysterious new novel, ’The Whispering House’, the latest book written by island-based author Elizabeth Brooks.

’The Whispering House’ is a Gothic suspense novel, set in the modern day and sees the central character, Freya, struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her older sister, Stella.

However, during a wedding held at the stately Byrne Hall, she goes exploring and finds a painting which appears to be of her sister. The more she investigates, the darker the story gets.

This is Elizabeth’s second novel, following on from 2018’s ’Call of the Curlew’ and it sees the author further exploring the world of all things dark and mysterious.

’Gothic and suspense seems to be my style. I have always been drawn to that,’ said Elizabeth.

’The first thing I ever wrote was a ghost story, which never really got off the ground, but I have always been drawn to that idea of old houses, secrets and dark, ghostly atmospheres.’

The origins of the character of Freya were influenced by a similar tragedy that befell Elizabeth’s own family.

’My own sister, Rachel, committed suicide during her 20s,’ she said.

’There were aspects of her, and my story that fed into the story of Stella and Freya.

’Throughout The Whispering House, Freya has to come to terms with the fact that her sister’s life and death will always be essentially mysterious.

’I felt such a strange mixture of emotions in the time around my sister’s death, and Freya feels these too.

’By "strange" I mean that alongside the obvious, acceptable emotions such as sadness, bewilderment and regret, there were the less obvious, less acceptable ones such as anger, like how could she do something so hurtful, relief as the worst has finally happened, so I don’t have to dread it anymore, and even jealously.

’These are not comfortable feelings to admit to, but it was fascinating to explore them through the characters of Freya and Stella.

’This book is not about her, but what happened and what I went through afterwards definitely influenced the story and I did find the process of writing it very therapeutic and cathartic.’

Elizabeth has set the story in Devon and was inspired to create the setting of Byrne Hall when she visited a national trust house many years ago which has a special significance for a writer.

’This book was inspired by a place I went to ages ago, to a National Trust house in Devon, which was a really beautiful old building and, in fact, turned out to be Agatha Christie’s old house,’ she said.

’The cover of my new book features the actual house.

’It has been stewing in my mind for years. It is funny where ideas come from. The seed has been there for years, but it takes me a long time to write my stories.’

The release of ’The Whispering House’ is very different from her experiences as a debut author, when she released ’Call of the Curlew’.

’The launch of my last book was very different to this one, with all the lockdown restrictions and so on,’ she said.

’The last one was all about going away on a tour of certain book shops in the UK, holding book talks and Q&A events. You can’t really do that now.’

Instead, Elizabeth will holding a day of book signings of ’The Whispering House’ at the Bridge Bookshop in Ramsey from 10-11am and then at Port Erin between 2- 3pm on Saturday, August 15.

’The Whispering House' is published by Doubleday books and is released today (Thursday).

by Mike Wade

Twitter:@iomnewspapers