The shadow of august door Sue Welford

Something about the author off the book:

The book was written by: Sue Welford.
Birthday: the 15the of August
Native town: Sussex that is situated in England.
Something about her life:
Sue didn’t like school very much, when she finally finished secondary school she’s trained to be a secretary. When she finished her training she went writing stories for a local newspaper. She liked it very much, so she went studying English literature, sociology and psychology. She also started writing at that time. It took seven years before someone accepted her first manuscript. Her first book for young adults was published in 1989. The shadow of August is the sixth book she wrote. Further she wrote stories for magazines about how it’s like to live on a farm. She married in 1964 and she got two children: A boy and a girl. Now Sue lives in Kent.

Summary:

Mattie’s mother is sick she has Cancer. When she wants to tell Mattie something real important a nurse comes in to give her food. Mattie went out to get herself a cup of tea. A few days later Mary died. After her mother died Mattie discovers a lot of things she didn’t know. Her solicitor tells her she’s the new owner of a house situated in Porthland. Mattie and Bram, her boyfriend went to the house and they met Mrs. and Mr. Armstrong. They had a box with old letters they were of Mattie’s grandparents. When Mattie start to read the letters one strange letter appears. The date of the letter is her birthday. Her mother wrote the letter to her parents. In the letter stood, she had run away with a guy she met on the fun-fair. So she couldn’t be pregnant of Mattie at that time. Mattie has some questions and she decides to go to doctor Kirkpatrick. She tells Mattie that her mother couldn’t be pregnant because she was having her periods. After further searching, Mattie founds out, that her Birth certificate has disappeared to. Mattie decides to go back to Porthland, there she visits the fun-fair to see if anyone knows her mother, nobody does so Mattie is really disappointed. Mattie is also seeing people sometimes. They are a man and women and they are acting like they want to play peek-a-boo with her, like she’s a baby. Bram thinks they are people she knew when she was a baby. Also Mattie want to know who they are and she decides to go to a hypnotist. When Mattie has been to the hypnotist she remembers a lot but she doesn’t know who they are. Then Bram comes also to Porthland and he has shocking news. Sixteen years ago a little girl was stolen at the fun-fair, Mattie is sixteen now and because there’s nothing of her childhood in her house no picture or something only a bracelet Mattie could be the kidnapped kid. They go to building of the local newspaper to ask if they can see some old papers. When Mattie looks in one of the papers she sees ‘her people’ the people she is always seeing. Later they go to the police office and ask if there’s someone who knows something about the case. Bill Palmer was the inspector of the case so he knows everything about it. Mattie tells her whole story and the man is wondered. He beliefs Mattie he only needs something so he can proof it. Than Mattie remembers having the bracelet, so she goes home and gets the bracelet. She has to come with the bracelet to the house of the family Cole. They are the parents of the stolen kid. When they are in the car Mattie looks at the Bracelet and she sees the name Sarah then she knows she the missing kid. She also discovers that she has a sister called Kelly.

My opinion:

The story of the book isn’t really a happy one, but I got really excited because she discovers so much. But you actually know that she is the missing girl, only you don’t believe Mary could have done something like this, and in the middle of the book Sue started with another character: Kelly. It’s a bit annoying she did because I wanted to read further about Mattie. Actually the book was really easy to read. Most of the time when I read an English book it’s hard to understand the story but the story off this book was real easy to understand.