Thornyhold by Mary Stewart

Title: Thornyhold
Author: Mary Stewart
ISBN: 978-1556527937
Publisher: Chicago Review Press/1989
Pages: 208

Gilly Ramsey has a very lonely childhood bereft of friends and even a pet. Her only source of delight are the occasional brief visits of her mother's cousin Geillis, who is her also godmother.

Geillis can sense Gilly's unhappiness and loneliness and tries to make it better by sending her to a school, sponsored by her. Gilly's mother dies, she can't finish her college education and comes back to the vicarage to look after her dad. When her father too dies, Gilly is left all alone with no home or any means to support herself. And then a letter arrives. Cousin Geillis has died, and has willed her house, Thornyhold, to Gilly. This is so unexpected and Gilly finds herself journeying towards Thornyhold.

Cousin Geillis, was well known amongst locals, what with her herbalist's practice and her visions of the future. She is also known as a witch. And Gilly, inherits everything, the house, the practice and also the mantle of witch. There are people in that town, who don't want her to live in that house and also those, who like her because of her cousin's reputation.

Gilly, a shy and insecure woman, is able to chose her own path the woods and she has the help of a small boy William and his father Christopher. Where she had lost all hopes of finding love, she finds it there in Thornyhold. And remembers that her cousin had indeed told her something to this effect. Christopher too seems to have been waiting for her as foretold by Geillis.

With poetic prose, great countryside, endearing characters, this book is part fantasy, part magic, and part reality. And tells us that it is never too late to find love and happiness.