"Reliance, Illinois has it all - mystery, politics, war; love, death, and art . . . Every page is a pleasure" (Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves).
Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there.
When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother's younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. But she is deeply wounded by her mother's deceptions, and soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner - prodigal daughter of the town's founder, suffragette, and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte.
Madelyn, though, simply wants to feel beautiful and loved - and for that she will pin her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran, in this historical novel that offers "a compelling portrait of a small Midwestern town and its residents during a period of great change" (Library Journal).
Genre: Literary Fiction
Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there.
When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother's younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. But she is deeply wounded by her mother's deceptions, and soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner - prodigal daughter of the town's founder, suffragette, and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte.
Madelyn, though, simply wants to feel beautiful and loved - and for that she will pin her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran, in this historical novel that offers "a compelling portrait of a small Midwestern town and its residents during a period of great change" (Library Journal).
Genre: Literary Fiction
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