Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon—like all the girls in her class—she’ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo dreams of becoming a writer—a newspaper reporter.

Wild aspirations aside, Jo’s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes: her father is found dead. The story is that Charles Montfort shot himself while cleaning his revolver, but the more Jo hears about her father’s death, the more something feels wrong. And then she meets Eddie—a young, smart, infuriatingly handsome reporter at her father’s newspaper—and it becomes all too clear how much she stands to lose if she keeps searching for the truth. But now it might be too late to stop.

I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end. I’m not a huge reader of Historical Fiction novels; the only ones I have read are the A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy by Libba Bray, which were phenomenal and I still re-read every once and awhile. But Jennifer Donnelly has 100% renewed my love for novels like this one.

Historical Fiction is not only growing on me, but this book made me want to read more and more of it. I think Donnelly absolutely nailed the time period and the subtle romance of the characters.

The way she crafted the story and the characters kept me drawn in and I didn’t want to stop listening. I listened to the audio book, but this is a book that I plan on buying so I can re-read it and not miss a detail.

I listen while I’m at work, so sometimes I zone out and miss stuff.

I LOVED Jo and her character. I loved that she wanted more out of her life than to just get married and have kids. She wanted a career in the newspaper industry and that was something that was really cool about this book too. I work at a newspaper, and obviously a lot is different about it now than it was then, but the atmosphere that Donnelly created was really enjoyable and true to what newspapers were in that time period. I related to Jo so much and I loved seeing the way her character developed throughout the story.

Eddie’s character was just as interesting and compelling as Jo’s. I really enjoyed his back story and just the kind of guy he was. I’ll be honest, I fell for him a bit. He was so loving and even though he would do anything to get a story (he’s a reporter at the paper Jo’s dad owned), he still keeps what he believes in close to his heart. He’s easily become one of my favorite characters ever and probably will be for a long time.

The mystery of the story was woven so well that I couldn’t stop trying to figure it out. And let me just say I. KNEW. IT. As much as I did doubt myself here and there, I freaking KNEW. I won’t say anything else about that part, because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who may want to read it.

Jennifer Donnelly continues to exceed my expectations and continues to be one of my all time favorite authors. Her writing is so amazing, I will never stop reading her work & I can’t wait to read her other Historical Fiction novels.