ARC Review: Nobody's Secret

Nobody's Secret by Michaela MacColl
4/5 stars
Chronicle Books, 2013
241 pages
YA Historical Mystery
Scheduled to release April 16

Source: Received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I've read both of MacColl's previous books and have really appreciated her focus on young historically significant women. Previously it was the young Queen Victoria and aviatrix Beryl Markham. This time we are visiting Emily Dickinson, a very well-known poet but not someone whose personal life I know much about. The book relies heavily on MacColl's imagination as it has Emily investigate what she suspects is a murder, something that has no direct basis in fact.

Still the book does a great job capturing what a young Emily might have been like. She is spunky and inquisitive, not a fainting flower, filled with a deep intellectual curiosity. I always say that I don't like poetry but that's not really true as I have liked what little I've sampled of Dickinson's writing and am pleased to report that excerpts from her poems open each chapter. Themes from her writing also permeate the story such as a preoccupation with bees and anonymity while living in a very small town. Something else to think about is the effect of domestic labor on a woman's ability to write (very shades of A Room of One's Own, very subtle in this book). Emily's sister Vinnie (short for Lavinia) is one of the most important secondary characters and I was pleased with the role of family.

As I said, this is a mystery with Emily attempting to uncover the identity of a dead man and insisting it was murder, piecing together all the clues. I had a sliver of an idea of what was going on but the villainy of the murderer was beyond my capability to imagine. I'm pleased that Emily was able to unravel the threads and gain some measure of peace regarding the man's final moments and I almost wish this particular story owed more to history than fiction.

Saying that, while I liked this book, I didn't love it. I wanted something more, that ineffable feeling an amazing book gives you and that was lacking here. Lovers of historical fiction and poetry should enjoy this as will fans of MacColl's previous works.

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Promise the Night

Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl
Chronicle Books, 2011
262 pages
YA; Historical
4/5 stars

Source: Received an ARC for review from Amazon Vine.

I really enjoyed MacColl's first novel about young future queen Victoria so I was interested in her second outing, another historical fiction novel about a British heroine in vastly different circumstances. This time the heroine is famed aviatrix Beryl Markham, who grew up in British East Africa. I had never heard of her and entered the book with no idea what to expect.

I really liked the writing and the adventures. Beryl is not a shy, retiring young lady; she is bold and daring, not content to sit inside but wanting to be a warrior and trainer of horses. She gets in to so many scrapes but is dedicated to doing the right thing and confessing her wrongs to her father. She has a strong sense of justice even if as a child, she still has much to learn. However I didn't really identify with her, being a more introverted and indoorsy girl, and disapproved of her hijinks; honestly I thought she was a little bratty in some instances such as her obstinacy against learning basic mathematics. I wonder if a younger reader might be more enchanted.

The book is roughly divided into three sections: Beryl's life on her father's ranch and Beryl's life at school interspersed with journal entries chronicling her record-setting journey to be the first woman to fly London to New York over the Atlantic (the winds make it tougher than New York to London). I loved the journal entries and Beryl's time at school. However MacColl doesn't shy away from some of the nastier elements of colonialism nor does she downplay the dangers of Africa (leopards to say the least), both of which made me squirm.

Overall: I did prefer MacColl's first novel but I definitely want to applaud this exciting and well-written historical YA novel.

Cover: The cover I received featured a blonde girl in aviator hat and glasses, which doesn't really capture the book as flying is not the biggest element. However this cover is pretty bland.

Prisoners in the Palace

Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl
Chronicle Books, 2010
352 pages
YA; Historical Fiction
4.5/5 stars

Source: Library

Summary: Liza was orphaned before she was able to enter Society, leaving her flat broke.  However she is fortunate enough to gain a position as lady's maid to Princess Victoria, catapulting her in to a world of intrigue and suspicion at Kensington Palace.  Caught between worlds, Liza must forge her own path and future.

I alternated a lot over whether I liked the portrayals of Liza and Victoria in this novel.  On the one hand, Liza was not that grand of a lady no matter what she wants to think; on the other hand, she's an orphan struggling to make her way in the world.  On the one hand, Victoria grows up to be a great queen and hints of compassion appear here; on the other, she's so mercurial and almost always self-absorbed.

I'm somewhat familiar with Victoria's childhood, especially with the villain Sir John Conroy who would stop at nothing to increase his influence over her as he had over her mother.  Whether he can be in charge of her correspondence, her purse, her throne, whatever, he wants it.  He knows no shame and was a fantastic character!  His plotting drives the main plot, culminating in a suspenseful ending before Victoria's ascension. Albert, future husband to Victoria, also makes a brief appearance; he is a prig and distinctly unworthy of her as presented at this point.  I personally am not a big fan of Albert ever but she loved him.

But there are also entirely fictional if representative characters.  Annie, Liza's predecessor as lady's maid, loses her position due to a pregnancy and suffers a huge downward spiral as I'm sure many women did, confronted with the social mores of the period and the lechery of upper-class men.  Will is a newspaperman and friend of Liza's whose broadsheets help inform public opinion.  Inside Boy, one of my favorite characters, is an urchin who teaches the colorful street patter and also aids Liza when in dire straits.  They added considerable color and fun to the novel, balanced against the more serious degradations suffered by Victoria from her mother and Sir John.

Overall: I really enjoyed this book except for some annoyances with Liza.

Cover: This is a gorgeously designed book-even if historical fiction isn't your thing, I recommend examining it at a store.  The back is designed like a newspaper with a combination of stories about the actual novel and blurbs from authors and the inside is also beautiful.