Personal Rating:5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.7 Stars Content Rating: PG Possible trigger warnings: mental health, domestic abuse It’s 1929, and twelve-year-old Martha has no choice but to work as a maid in the New York City mansion of the wealthy Sewell family. But, despite the Gatsby-like parties and trimmings of success, she suspects something might be deeply wrong in the household—specifically with Rose Sewell, the formerly vivacious lady of the house who now refuses to leave her room. The other servants say Rose is crazy, but scrappy, strong-willed Martha thinks there’s more to the story—and that the paintings in the Sewell’s gallery contain a hidden message detailing the truth. But in a house filled with secrets, nothing is quite what it seems, and no one is who they say. Can Martha follow the clues, decipher the code, and solve the mystery of what’s really going on with Rose Sewell . . . ? (goodreads.com) Now, I know I start many reviews this way, but LOOK AT THAT GOSH DARNED BEAUTIFUL COVER. Stunning. 10/10 cover art, and in person the gold bits are actually shiny so that’s pretty awesome. Okay, that out of the way, let’s get going with the real review for this book. I got this book for Christmas a couple of years ago and it has been sitting in a box for a while with a load of other books waiting to be read. Despite it’s beautiful cover, it was not a priority read for me and I wasn’t sure that I was ever going to get to reading it. But… then Medieval-a-thon 2021 came along and one of the prompts was for a book with a gilded cover. Since I’m trying to read more of my physical TBR now that I have the shelf space to display it all, I came across this book and decided to go for it. Though it took me a couple of chapters to get into it, I ended up not wanting to put this book down. I skipped breakfast one morning so I could stay in bed reading this and, though breakfast isn’t my favorite, I do hate to miss a meal. But it was worth it in this case! The main character, Martha, while a tad sacreligious at times, was fun to read about. She really balanced being a mischievous scamp with being a responsible older sibling well and I liked that she could cause trouble and have fun, but then turn around and be kind hearted to her mother and brothers. I also loved her resolve to solve the mystery of what was going on with Mrs. Sewell. She is the narrator of the story and when we first meet her she is one hundred years old and sitting down to type out the tale of what happened when she worked in the Sewell house, leading up to a shocking turn of events. (She tells you about this shocking turn of events right at the beginning, but it is still fun to fit the puzzle pieces together to see how the situation escalated to that point.) I found this to be an atmospheric read as well. It set the scene for the late 1920’s with prohibition, the Hoover-Smith election, mentions of 20’s film stars, and the early signs of the market crash. But apart from all of that, it also talked about day to day life of a working class family as well as the more glamorous upper class during this time period and it even had a Gatsby-esque party to really throw things into high gear. It made me want to walk around 1920’s New York City and dance to some swing music. As I’m sitting here writing this review, I’m trying to think of something to critique about the story, but nothing comes to mind that I didn’t enjoy about it. So, real quick, I’m going to change my rating from 4 stars to 5. And it’s not like this is the best book I’ve ever read or anything, but it was charming and sweet and exciting. I stayed up too late reading it and I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t get a glowing review. I’m sure, when I read it, there was something that I didn’t like, but it’s been a week since then and I can’t remember what it was so… 5 stars! Ha! You can’t stop me! Of course, a completely positive review does not make for great blog content, so there is that, but I’m sure we’ll all survive. I’ll try to read something terrible soon, I promise. Then we can all laugh about it together. But, the book I’m reading currently is a good one (I’ll still review it though) and the book I’m reading after that is part of the Grishaverse series so I can’t imagine that will be bad, so it might be a minute before I write a good old fashioned negative review. So be patient. That’s all I have for today, but thank you for reading! I’m off to chaotically rearrange famous paintings in my personal art gallery (aka move around my own doodles on my refrigerator). Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32078140-the-gallery
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