The treatment of bisexuality was very blase, which I guess in one way is nice that it wasn't made a big deal of but on the other hand felt very strange for a 15-year-old girl of landed gentry background in 1939 Scotland.
The whole amnesia plot facilitates that, giving Julia new clues every so often through no detective work of her own but just because she suddenly remembers.Overall it just wasn't an intellectually or emotionally stimulating read. It often felt like one of those plots where the protagonist doesn't really do much but just has things happen to them. I wonder if others' glowing reviews of this are affected by the fact that they know Julia (and possibly other characters?) from previous novels set after this one chronologically (I haven't read them). No one really came alive in fact the place felt more alive than the people. I never felt emotionally invested in any of the characters nor did the central mystery add any tension.
But the characters and the narrative itself fell flat. I was fascinated by some of the historical material and loved learning about Scottish Travellers and river mussel pearls which kept my interest in the early parts of the novel. Unfortunately a disappointing read in the end. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime. Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travellers.
As Julie grows closer to this family, she experiences some of the prejudices they’ve grown used to firsthand, a stark contrast to her own upbringing, and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation. One of her family’s employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital.ĭesperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scottish Traveller boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister, Ellen. And once she returns to her grandfather’s estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she’d imagined won’t be exactly like she anticipated.
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