A Drowned Maiden's Hair

I said I was going to write more about my reading. So here we are.

I don't think I'll hit my reading goal of 52 books this year. It's okay. I can't be expected to meet it every single year but I am a bit disappointed in myself. 

I've just found it so much harder to get into books this year. There have been so many from my classroom library that I have picked up only to abandon a chapter in. And that's okay too. I would tell my students that it is okay to abandon books when they don't work for you because you want to move on to something that does.

And I did. 

I am officially a huge fan of Laura Amy Schlitz's writing. 

I read her book, Splendors and Glooms last year and was mesmerized by the gothic victorian setting and the mysterious yet magical plot. 

Then, I picked up A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama not expecting much.

I was so wrong. This book is excellent from the start. Maud is instantly a likable naughty orphan who is adopted by the three elderly Hawthorne sisters (reluctantly by two). 

They deem her their "secret child" and keep her out of view of others while lavishing her with dresses, books, and gifts. 

Why must Maud be a secret child?

A bit of a SPOILER ALERT.

The Hawthorne sisters are crooks who deceive rich grieving people into believing their loved ones are contacting them from the dead.

The sisters' stage seances with all kinds of tricks to fool their clients into believing they are true mediums able to speak to the dead. 

They have adopted Maud because they need a child actor to play the part of a girl who drowned after a row with her mother. They need her to carry out the "family business."

Maud, desperate for love and family and with tendencies towards mischief, falls into her role quickly and easily but after a disastrous event that showed her who truly loves her, the family business may be in jeopardy.

This story was so unique. I've never read a children's book quite like it. It had all the makings of so many other stories: an orphan, mistreated by adults, the reckoning moment, and the benevolent savior but the way Schlitz portrayed the characters, the need for the sisters to be con artists, and the seances themselves was so interesting and unique.

I will now read anything and everything Schlitz writes because both of her novels that I've read have been amazing. I would enthusiastically put this book into the hands of a child who loves a good drama.