Brought to her aunt's home along with her father's other personal effects after his death in a debtor's prison, Aurelie finds herself in household surrounded by small-minded relatives who greet her with apathy at best, with the exception of the one other houseguest, Silas Rotherham, who finds her conversation intriguing. With no other outlet but her writing, Aurelie decides to finish her father's serial novel about her mother--written under a the pen name, Nathaniel Droll. As her father was wont to do, she begins writing more of her secretive relations into the serial, and it doesn't take long for them to notice the similarities between the stories and their lives. Can she keep the identity of her pen name a secret as she searches for the ending--both the fictional one and the true one--to her mother's story?The cover drew me in first, then the description heightened my interest--but the story is what enchanted me. It's different--more Dickens than Austen, Gothic yet faith-filled, and not without humor.
I loved Aurelie's simple, unshakable faith; there are a lot of things about both her life and her family's history that she has to learn, but God's faithfulness is not one of them. I especially loved her prayer, "God, give me exactly what I would ask for if I knew everything you know." She has the wisdom to ask for the best.
My opinion of Aurelie's aunt definitely changed by the end of the book; I could respect her decisions, hard as they clearly were for her--no matter how much you love someone and want to save them from themselves, at some point that beloved person has to accept the consequences of their choices.
I loved the ending; maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by it, but the story was sufficiently enchanting that I wasn't thinking ahead, just enjoying the moment. But I look forward to rereading it to see all those hints I missed!
Thank you Revell for a free book. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions are my own.
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