India Selwyn Jones is a lady doctor in 1900 who defies convention and finds a post in London's East End. After a friend recommended me the ‘Rose’ series by Jennifer Donnelly back in 2011, I just couldn’t get through them fast enough.

All those present-tense chapters, where we read the (genuine) letters written by a 1906 murder victim are just, to change the metaphor, the icing on the cake. Next day the woman is found drowned in Big Moose Lake - should Mattie read the letters or destroy them as requested.In fact, if you read both and compare then, you’ll be seriously shocked the same author penned both books.

Mattie is a voracious reader—she even reads her beloved dictionary daily, giving us many words-of-the-day throughout the book and using them in various situations. At the turn of the century, women were still struggling to find their own voice, to escape from what was conventionally expected of them in society, and I feel the book depicts this very well. Mattie's story takes place in the early 1900s, a time when women were expected to run a household and raise a family. And that, my friends, is what made this story so wonderful, "something moving, and real, and wholly original".In a series of parallels we get Grace and her rich lover, ‘Miss Wilcox’ the disguised poet and her rich husband and Mattie with the boy next door. For every present-day chapter there are even more chapters from the past, not only detailing Mattie's journey but also showing who she really is.