ShortBookandScribes #PublicationDay #BookReview – The Mischief Makers by Elisabeth Gifford

The Mischief Makers by Elisabeth Gifford is published today by Corvus in hardcover, eBook and audiobook. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy of this wonderful book.

She wrote her stories in his shadow. Now Daphne’s past is catching up with her…

In a beautiful house in the wilds of Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Tangled in a self-destructive love affair that threatens to unravel her marriage, she is also distracted by worry for the family friend whose shadow looms over her childhood: J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

Daphne tries to escape into writing her new book, but the line between fiction and reality blurs dangerously when her own characters start manifesting before her eyes – in particular a woman called Rebecca who looks suspiciously like her husband’s alluring ex-girlfriend.

Daphne must confront the dark truth that lurks beneath the fantasy of Peter Pan and the secret life that has plagued her since she found fame. Unless she can solve these mysteries and reckon with who she truly is as an artist, her next great work may be lost to history . . .

The Mischief Makers appealed to me as soon as I read the blurb and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I love a book that fictionalises a real person’s life…as long as it is done well, and this book most definitely is.

It focuses on Daphne du Maurier and covers much of her life from childhood through to her sixties. We witness her move to, and fascination with, Cornwall, her marriage, children and of course, the creation of her collection of enduring books: Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, Jamaica Inn et al. However, this is not just Daphne’s tale. Her family has always been indelibly linked with J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan. Her five boy cousins, the Llewelyn Davies, were the original lost boys, adopted by Barrie when their parents died. Throughout her life, Daphne considers the effect of Barrie’s influence on them all.

The Mischief Makers does focus mainly on Daphne with the Barrie thread running all the way through as well, and the way Elisabeth Gifford has written this book works so well. To be honest, I was completely and utterly mesmerised by the whole thing, drinking in the lives of two authors who I didn’t really know very much about at all. There’s so much charm in the characters and their families and yet somewhere just beneath the surface something unsettling lurks. Barrie’s influence?

The writing is incredibly appealing and absorbing. Gifford has done a wonderful job at bringing Daphne du Maurier to life and telling her story in this way. The Mischief Makers is exactly my kind of read – the life of a prolific writer, with beautifully described settings, researched and depicted perfectly. I completely adored this book and it’s easily one of my favourites of the year.

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. She has a Diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford OUDCE and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She is the author of five previous historical novels, including The Good Doctor of Warsaw and The Lost Lights of St Kilda. She is married with three children, and lives in Kingston upon Thames.