I remember the day I started this
book fondly. School was still in session and I was taking a day off, probably
because I had just worked a Saturday or I was getting ready to work a full
weekend. I was ready to splurge! I had just finished a lackluster novel and was
excited to try again. I was curled up on my black leather recliner with a “cat”
blanket wrapped around my shoulders. My shoes were kicked off. The dog was at
my feet. The cat was in my lap. My coffee was next to me. A glass of water was
within reach. I was only missing some delicious pastry…
And I dug in!
I recall exclaiming, “This is
brilliant! Lovely! Delightful!” over and over and over. The book was unique and
sucked me right in. I was in paradise in more ways than one. An adult Janie
Scott was looking back on her childhood and recalling the spring of 1952 in
which her memory drew a blank. She was able to share her memories only through
her very diary that had finally been returned to her. She recognized her diary merely
because she recognized her own handwriting.
What had happened in 1952 that had
caused her to lose her memory? Magic!
Rereading the first chapter or two,
I see why I was so entranced. The book begins as historical fiction covering an
era I know less about – America during the age of McCarthyism. Janie’s parents
were Hollywood screenwriters who were blacklisted for their liberal ideas. When
U.S. Marshall’s began to follow fourteen-year-old Janie, her parents decide it
is time to leave. They take a job in London and move the family. Janie drags
her feet all the way!
I remained captivated through the
family’s move to London and Janie’s miserable first day at the elite St.
Beden’s Academy where she met a perfectly perfect rich girl and witnessed a
rebelliously charismatic boy. I fell in love with the local Apothecary who recognized
Janie’s homesickness and prescribed an antidote that might even work if you
were willing to try it.
And just when the fantastical begins
to take place and one would think there will be ever more glorious adventures…
Well
It
Just
Fell
Flat
How sad.
I don’t quite remember when I became
bored with the book. Ne w and interesting characters were introduced including
a show-stealing Dickensian street urchin named Pip who claims the lovely rich
girl for his own. There are spies and double agents and even a scar faced man.
There is a Chinese chemist who has discovered how to capture radiation in mass
quantities and protect the people from such atrocities as the atomic bomb.
There is so much here to like. In
the end, I believe the problem with this novel is that it tries to do too much.
Be too much. It is quantity over quality in my opinion. There is magic… but not
enough. It is historical… but not enough. It is mystery… but not enough.
Perhaps picking one genre and sticking with it would have produced a stronger
novel. If it would have just been about the cold war, I would have been
fascinated. And I love the idea of apothecaries being a secret society of
alchemists trying to protect the world from harm.
I really wish I could have loved it.
I won’t have to recommend it. It is a nominee from the Rebecca Caudill 2014
list.
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