Bristol House

Finished April 30
Bristol House by Beverly Swerling

This novel is set in London in the present day, but there are also commentaries from two speakers from sixteenth century, one a Carthusian monk and the other a Lombard Jew.
Annie Kendall has come to London to do research. She was hired very suddenly by a Jewish organization to look into the existence of a Jewish man known as The Jew of Holborn who sent ancient Jewish artifacts to various Jewish communities in 1735. This was a time that no one lived openly as Jewish, and the monasteries were under attack by Henry VIII. Annie is a recovering alcoholic, who has much in her past that she isn't happy with. She has snatched at this chance of a research job as it offers an opportunity to take back the academic career she lost hold of several years ago. Her doctoral dissertation had been titled The Effect of Protestant Iconoclasm on Sacred Doorway Decoration in Tudor England, 1537-1559, so the research she has been asked to do is relevant to the time period she is familiar with. Her new employer has set her up with the loan of a third-floor apartment in Bristol House, not far from the British Museum, one of her research locations. The apartment is well-kept, but seems to have something she hadn't bargained for, a ghost. When Annie meets a man, Geoff Harris, that is the spitting image of the ghost, she is amazed, and when she is drawn into Geoff's life, she is sure that there is a connection to her ghost and possibly her research.
A novel involving history, romance, and danger, this is a story you won't want to put down.